Tom Corbetthttp://www.desmogblog.com/taxonomy/term/6040/all
enPennsylvania Plant Agrees to Stop Dumping Partially-Treated Fracking Wastewater in River After Lengthy Lawsuithttp://www.desmogblog.com/2014/09/16/pennsylvania-wastewater-treatment-plant-agrees-stop-dumping-partially-treated-fracking-wastewater-river-after-year
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_164353952.jpg?itok=SuWgnRbk" width="200" height="150" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>A Pennsylvania wastewater treatment plant alleged to have dumped toxic and radioactive materials into the Allegheny River has agreed to construct a new treatment facility, under a settlement announced Thursday with an environmental organization that had filed suit against the plant.</p>
<p>Back in 2011, Pennsylvania made <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?ref=drillingdown">national headlines</a> because the state's treatment plants – including municipal sewage plants and industrial wastewater treatment plants like Waste Treatment Corporation – were accepting drilling and fracking wastewater laden with pollutants that they could not remove.</p>
<p>In July 2013, Clean Water Action <a href="http://www.cleanwateraction.org/press/legal-action-announced-against-wastewater-plant-stop-illegal-discharges-drilling-wastewater">alleged in a lawsuit</a> that Waste Treatment Corp. of Warren, <span class="caps">PA</span> violated the federal Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, along with Pennsylvania's Clean Streams Law by <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/07/19/environmentalists-say-oil-and-gas-waste-water-still-discharged-into-allegheny-river/">continuing to discharge</a> partially treated wastewater, carrying corrosive salts, heavy metals and radioactive materials into the river, which serves as the drinking water supply for hundreds of thousands of people, including much of the city of Pittsburgh. </p>
<p>Under the terms of the settlement, within 8 months, Waste Treatment Corporation must install advanced treatment technology that will remove 99% of the contaminants in gas drilling wastewater.</p>
<p>Until those treatment methods are in place, Waste Treatment Corporation agreed to stop accepting wastewater from Marcellus shale wells, notorious for its high levels of radioactivity, and to cut the amount of wastewater it can accept from conventional gas wells by over a third.</p>
<p>“The settlement represents the first time an existing industrial treatment plant discharging gas drilling wastewater in Pennsylvania agreed to install effective treatment technology to protect local rivers,” Clean Water Action wrote in a press release.</p>
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<p>In January 2013, state regulators <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/17/another-pennsylvania-wastewater-treatment-plant-accused-illegally-disposing-fracking-radioactive-waste">discovered</a> many pollutants associated with oil and gas drilling – including chlorides, bromides, strontium and magnesium – immediately downstream of the plant’s discharge pipe. Upstream of the plant, those same contaminants were found at levels 1 percent or less than those downstream, or were not present at all.</p>
<p>A significant amount of radioactivity was found in the Allegheny riverbed. Sediments just downstream of the Waste Treatment Corporation’s discharge pipe contained over 50 picocuries per gram (pCi/g) of radium-226, state records show. To put that number in rough context, the levels in found in the Allegheny are 10 times those that <span class="caps">EPA</span> <a href="http://http://www.epa.gov/superfund/health/conmedia/soil/cleanup.htm">requires</a> the surface soil at cleaned-up uranium mining sites to achieve.</p>
<p>“We think this is a settlement that is going to protect the Allegheny river,” said Myron Arnowitt, attorney for Clean Water Action, “we think it is going to greatly improve water quality.”</p>
<p>In November 2013, the Pennsylvania <span class="caps">DEP</span> <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/news/environment/2013/11/28/DEP-aims-to-reduce-company-s-discharges-into-river/stories/201311280176">proposed</a> a settlement with Waste Treatment Corporation that would have required the plant to upgrade its treatment methods but allowed it to continue accepting wastewater from gas wells at the same rate for two additional years. But things seemed to grind to a half after those terms were made public.</p>
<p>“They proposed it, held a public comment period, and then never did anything else with it,” Mr. Arnowitt told DeSmog. “We wanted to make sure that we pursued our case because the state really was taking no action.”</p>
<p>The treatment method that Waste Treatment Corporation agreed to install relies on a distillation process, which will remove over 99 percent of the contaminants from gas drilling wastewater, Mr. Arnowitt said.</p>
<p>While this should bring a halt to the dumping of radioactive materials in the Allegheny, <a href="http://www.waterworld.com/articles/2013/09/membrane-distillation-process-proves-success-for-fracking-wastewater.html">distillation</a> brings its own headaches. The process produces clean water, but also solid waste – in which contaminants, including radioactive materials, may be concentrated.</p>
<p>Marcellus shale wastewater often carries <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/marcellus-shale-natural-gas-drilling-radioactive-wastewater/">relatively high levels</a> of radioactive materials, like radium and uranium, that rise up from deep underground along with the shale gas that drillers target and the salty brines that were trapped along with the gas.</p>
<p>Pennsylvania regulators have a poor track record when it comes to controlling radioactive waste from the state's Marcellus shale drilling rush.</p>
<p>Although some of the solid waste from drill sites, like the shards of rock produced when a deep gas well is drilled (known in the industry as cuttings), can be laced with radium, uranium and other radioactive elements. In 2012 alone, over 15,000 tons of drill cuttings (more than 1,000 truckloads) <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/local/marcellusshale/2013/08/22/Marcellus-Shale-waste-trips-more-radioactivity-alarms-than-other-products-left-at-landfills/stories/201308220367">tripped</a> radiation alarms at Pennsylvania's landfills.</p>
<p>The levels of radioactivity generally are not high enough to harm anyone who simply stands nearby. But the drill cuttings from the Marcellus have been high enough to contaminate the water that runs off from landfills after rainstorms (called leachate).</p>
<p>Tests of leachate from one West Virginia landfill that accepted radioactive drill cuttings <a href="http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2014-04-21/environment/marcellus-waste-radioactivity-in-water-leaching-from-landfills/a38864-1">showed</a> an average of 250 picocuries per liter (pci/l) of radioactive materials – and peak levels as high as 4,000 pci/l. To put that in perspective, the <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s <a href="http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/radionuclides.cfm">maximum contaminant level</a> for drinking water is 15 pci/l.</p>
<p>So knowing where that waste is heading is important – if drill cuttings are illegally dumped, for example, the runoff from that site could be hazardous to people or animals that drank it, or could pollute streams that the runoff flows into.</p>
<p>Despite these known hazards, Pennsylvania regulators have failed to keep tabs on what happens to drill cuttings, an<a href="http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/companies-powersource/2014/08/31/Shale-drillers-landfill-records-don-t-match-the-state-s-Pennsylvania/stories/201408310111"> investigation</a> by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently revealed.</p>
<p>It turns out that landfill companies have reported receiving far greater amounts of drilling waste than drillers reported generating.</p>
<p>Although state law requires drillers to report what they do with their waste to the state, an August 31 <a href="http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/companies-powersource/2014/08/31/Shale-drillers-landfill-records-don-t-match-the-state-s-Pennsylvania/stories/201408310111">article</a> by the Post-Gazette reported major discrepancies between what drillers reported to the state and what landfills reported receiving. One drilling company, <span class="caps">EQT</span> Corp., told the <span class="caps">PA</span> <span class="caps">DEP</span> that it had sent 21 tons of drill cuttings to landfills in 2013 – but the landfills' records showed they'd received 95,000 tons.</p>
<p>“That’s not a typo; it’s 4,500 times as much,” the Post-Gazette Editorial Board <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2014/09/03/Dirty-numbers-Someone-s-account-of-shale-waste-disposal-is-way-off/stories/201409030026">wrote</a> in response to the findings. “Although the agency said it has been aware of the problem for 'a number of months,' it didn’t launch an investigation into <span class="caps">EQT</span>’s or Range’s reports until the Post-Gazette told the government what it had learned. After-the-fact inquiries by the agency are not reassuring, and neither is <span class="caps">DEP</span>’s assertion that the landfill numbers are accurate and those are the ones it uses in making policy decisions.”</p>
<p>For most industries, a federal law, the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act, requires that hazardous materials (haz-mat) be closely tracked and disposed of under tight controls. Shippers <a href="http://www.epa.gov/osw/laws-regs/regs-haz.htm">must</a> maintain a manifest that tracks every ounce as haz-mat moves from cradle to grave.</p>
<p>But under an exception to that federal law, crafted in 1988, much of the oil and gas industry's toxic waste is not regulated by the <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s haz-mat rules. Although agency officials discovered strong evidence that the waste was dangerous, pressure from the Reagan White House kept their conclusions <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/us/04gas.html?ref=drillingdown">out of the report</a> that the agency ultimately delivered to Congress.</p>
<p>This means that tracking radioactive or hazardous waste from the shale drilling rush is left up to state regulators. And when they fail, the last recourse is for community groups to sue to enforce state laws – a costly and slow process that can only begin after things have already gone wrong.</p>
<p>When it to Waste Treatment Corporation, if the plant treats Marcellus shale wastewater after its new treatment facilities are installed, the solid waste left over from its distillation process will likely carry radium-226, a <a href="http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/radium.html">radioactive element</a> that has a half-life of over 1,600 years.</p>
<p>Some have little faith that the <span class="caps">DEP</span> will keep tabs on that solid waste if it is hazardous.</p>
<p>“We'll definitely be following up,” Mr. Arnowitt said.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:8px;">Photo Credit: </span><span style="font-size:8px;"><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-164353952/stock-photo-background-of-d-yellow-barel-and-radioactive-sign.html?src=BEG_AjUMcXPfThr6dJDFhQ-4-7">background of 3d yellow barel and radioactive sign,</a> via Shutterstock</span></p>
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<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6843">wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6879">Radioactive</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13211">uranium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8488">radioactivity</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18004">gross alpha</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18005">gross beta</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14317">corrosive salts</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18006">total dissolved solids</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18007">Waste Treatment Corp</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6687">Clean Water Action</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6349">hydrofracking</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2920">pollution</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18008">Allegheny</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6019">drinking water</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10521">Endangered Species</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/pittsburgh">pittsburgh</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13212">Allegheny River</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18009">bromides</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14328">strontium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18010">magnesium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18011">discharge</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16713">picocuries</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18012">Pennsylvania Deparment of Environmental Protection</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10857">Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18013">cuttings</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16714">drill cuttings</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18014">leachate</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17489">landfills</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17485">illegal dumping</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18015">manifest system</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5338">hazardous waste</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15185">RCRA</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7413">Resource Conservation and Recovery Act</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/epa">EPA</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1471">Environmental Protection Agency</a></div></div></div>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 05:45:44 +0000Sharon Kelly8506 at http://www.desmogblog.comPennsylvania Environmental Regulators Flunk State's Own Shale Gas Audithttp://www.desmogblog.com/2014/07/23/pennsylvania-environmental-regulators-flunk-state-shale-gas-audit
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_172563068.jpg?itok=hygRZxX2" width="200" height="122" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>In January 2013, Pennsylvania's auditor general <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/hp_mobile/2013/01/21/Pa-auditor-to-review-wastewater-from-shale-well-drilling/stories/201301210151">announced</a> that he would conduct an investigation into whether state regulators were effectively overseeing the impacts from the shale gas drilling rush.</p>
<p>A year and a half later, the results are in: the state's environmental regulators are failing badly in at least eight major areas, at times declining to cite drillers who broke the law. In a damning <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1225635/auditor-generals-report-on-department-of.pdf">158-page report</a>, the state's auditor general highlighted the agency's wide-ranging failures. The report detailed the Department of Environmental Protection's (<span class="caps">DEP</span>) use of a legal “loop hole” to avoid inspecting wells and described the agnecy's failure to fulfill its duty to track the industry's toxic waste. The report also faulted the agency for a reliance on voluntary measures in policing the industry.</p>
<p>The federal government has largely taken a hands-off approach to policing the drilling boom. What federal rules do exist have various broad exemptions exemptions for the oil and gas industry. Pennsylvania, which features a large swath of the Marcellus shale, is widely viewed as ground zero for the current fracking boom. In the unusually candid report released this week, state auditors have concluded that the state is overwhelmed by the industry and is providing insufficient oversight.</p>
<p>“It is <span class="caps">DEP</span>’s responsibility to protect the environment from these environmental risks and to ensure that laws and regulations which govern potential impacts to water quality are enforced,” Pennsylvania's auditors wrote. “Unfortunately, <span class="caps">DEP</span> was unprepared to meet these challenges because the rapid expansion of shale gas development has strained <span class="caps">DEP</span>, and the agency has failed to keep up with the workload demands placed upon it.”</p>
<p>Auditors described state environmental regulators as woefully outgunned and unprepared for the sudden arrival of the shale gas drilling frenzy.</p>
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<p>“In conclusion, as evidenced by this audit, <span class="caps">DEP</span> needs assistance,” Auditor General Eugene A. DePasquale wrote in a cover letter attached to the report. “It is underfunded, understaffed, and does not have the infrastructure in place to meet the continuing demands placed upon the agency by expanded shale gas development.”</p>
<p>For years, Pennsylvania residents have reported that state regulators were failing to fulfill its duty to protect the public and the environment. The report offers new evidence corroborating these concerns.</p>
<p>In particular, the auditors singled out eight major problem areas:</p>
<p>* Record-keeping was “egregiously poor,” the auditors reported, adding that even though they had “unprecedented” access to the Department's files, they could not label their review, which spanned 2009 to 2012, “full” because the documentation that the agency maintained was lacking.</p>
<p>* The <span class="caps">DEP</span> relied heavily on “voluntary compliance” when wrongdoing was discovered, instead of the legally-binding orders that state law makes mandatory, and regulators often relied on drillers' time and money to complete investigations. Auditors faulted the agency for allowing drillers to avoid racking up violations when the companies reached private settlements with people who were harmed. “While it might make sense from a fiscal standpoint for <span class="caps">DEP</span> to push much of the cost of these investigations onto the operators, when <span class="caps">DEP</span> fails to consistently use the regulatory tools provided by the Act, <span class="caps">DEP</span> risks losing the relevance and authority it holds as a regulator,” the auditors wrote. “Stated simply, without fear of a 'bite,' <span class="caps">DEP</span>’s 'bark' will do little to ensure compliance.”</p>
<p>* The auditors faulted the agency for failing to keep citizens informed about the results of investigations in unusually blunt terms. “<span class="caps">DEP</span> communicated poorly with citizens,” they wrote, adding that the Department not only missed deadlines but also failed to give people who had reported problems “clear written investigative results.”</p>
<p>* The Department also received failing grades for how it tracked citizen complaints. Tracking was so bad that the agency was not able to answer basic questions like “how many shale gas related complaints were received or how many complaints resulted in a positive determination?” auditors observed.</p>
<p>* When it came to inspecting wells, auditors discovered that it was nearly impossible to determine whether shale wells were being inspected in a timely manner because of problems with record keeping. “Until <span class="caps">DEP</span> improves its timeliness and frequency of inspections,” the report concluded, “it cannot truly fulfill its responsibilities as the state’s environmental regulator.</p>
<p>* In another crucial area, the tracking of the industry's toxic and radioactive waste, the state flunked. “<span class="caps">DEP</span> monitors shale waste with self-reported data that is neither verified nor quality controlled for accuracy and reliability,” auditors warned. They recommended that the Department adopt a so-called “manifest system,” which would require shale gas wastewater to be tracked like other industries' hazardous wastes. In 2011, The New York Times reported that the state had dropped those plans under heavy industry lobbying.</p>
<p>* The department's system for making information about shale gas public is simply “a spider web of links to arcane reports,” auditors wrote. “Users are left with a dizzying amount of data, but none of the data is presented in a logical and sensible manner.”</p>
<p>* Although the Department is required by law to post inspections and violations on its website, the data was riddled with errors (at a rate “as high as 25 percent in key data fields” and as many as three-quarters of comments by inspectors, which often contain information critical to understanding problems, never made it to the online inspection reports.</p>
<p>Environmental advocates welcomed the report. “The auditor general’s report vindicates the ever growing chorus of voices that have been calling on the <span class="caps">DEP</span> for years to reform its practices, and for sufficient funding for adequate staffing,” said Nick Kennedy, a community advocate for Mountain Watershed Association.</p>
<p>The <span class="caps">DEP</span> responded to the report by focusing on parts by emphasizing that things have improved greatly since the period studied by the auditors.</p>
<p>“For the past 16 months, we've cooperated fully with the Auditor General's Office and we appreciate the professionalism shown by their staff,” <span class="caps">DEP</span> Secretary E. Christopher Abruzzo <a href="http://gantdaily.com/2014/07/23/dep-performance-report-validates-dept-s-work-regarding-unconventional-gas-drilling-activities/">said</a>. “As we've explained to the auditors, because the report focused on the time period up until the end of 2012, most of this audit reflects how our Oil and Gas Program formerly operated, not how the program currently functions.”</p>
<p>The <span class="caps">DEP</span> <a href="http://gantdaily.com/2014/07/23/dep-performance-report-validates-dept-s-work-regarding-unconventional-gas-drilling-activities/">added</a> that the report “validates Pennsylvania <span class="caps">DEP</span>'s work” and that auditors identified “no instances where <span class="caps">DEP</span> failed to protect public health, safety or the environment with respect to unconventional gas drilling activities.”</p>
<p>Their defense of their regulations may sound familiar to those who have followed the controversy over fracking in the state for years. Back in 2011, when Pennsylvania made national headlines for what the New York Times<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?ref=drillingdown"> labeled </a>“lax” regulation, the recently-replaced head of the <span class="caps">DEP</span> John Hanger strenously <a href="http://johnhanger.blogspot.com/2011/02/statement-regarding-sunday-nyt-february.html">defended</a> his agency's record by claiming that by the time he'd left office in January 2011, regulation had grown enormously stronger.</p>
<p>The state auditors concluded otherwise, however, including the <span class="caps">DEP</span>'s objections to each finding in their report and responding to each individually. Ultimately, auditors concluded the <span class="caps">DEP</span>'s defenses were groundless, noting that the <span class="caps">DEP</span> had often contradicted itself as it responded to criticism.</p>
<p>“Our recommendations addressed weaknesses we noted in <span class="caps">DEP</span>’s operations, specifically in relation to how <span class="caps">DEP</span> communicated with complainants and the timeliness of <span class="caps">DEP</span>’s investigations into water supply impacts,” they wrote. “Consequently, we are perplexed that <span class="caps">DEP</span> disagreed with the finding itself, yet agreed with all of our recommendations that were directed to the agency to help correct the deficiencies we identified.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:9px;">Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-172563068/stock-photo-audit-grunge-red-stamp.html?src=KQnWt2FP3H91EWLaUxn18Q-1-4">Audit grunge red stamp</a>, via Shutterstock.</span></p>
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<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6349">hydrofracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2625">pennsylvania</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12162">John Hanger</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2916">audit</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12305">auditor general</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17371">fail</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16718">loopholes</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7512">Toxic Waste</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11787">violations</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17372">cite</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9689">Fine</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17373">punish</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17374">failures</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17375">voluntary compliance</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14279">drillers</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17376">state control</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17377">federal regulation</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11536">environmental laws</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8117">Enforcement</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17378">lax</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17379">Eugene A. DePasquale</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5648">Report</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17380">record-keeping</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12285">settlements</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17381">non-disclosure</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17382">poor communication</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17383">citizens</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11906">complaints</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5433">Department of Environmental Protection</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9229">DEP</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14402">tracking</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17384">inspections</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17385">shale gas wells</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17386">shale oil wells</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14520">Natural Gas Liquids</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11835">flowback</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7112">brine</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6879">Radioactive</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6192">Toxic</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6280">Waste</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17387">self-reported</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17388">reliability</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15620">accuracy</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2247">lobbying</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17389">errors</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17390">deficiencies</a></div></div></div>Wed, 23 Jul 2014 16:08:35 +0000Sharon Kelly8331 at http://www.desmogblog.comFracking in Public Forests Leaves Long Trail of Damages, Struggling State Regulatorshttp://www.desmogblog.com/2014/03/11/industry-pushes-more-fracking-nation-s-public-forests-state-regulators-struggling-police-marcellus-drillers
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_173125250.jpg?itok=1FJm85tC" width="200" height="301" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Last Wednesday, the Washington <span class="caps">D.C.</span> city council <a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/media/detail/washington_d.c._city_council_opposes_fracking_in_george_washington_national">passed a resolution</a> opposing fracking in the George Washington National Forest, making the nation’s capitol the third major <span class="caps">U.S.</span> city, after Los Angeles and Dallas, to decry the hazards of shale drilling in recent days.</p>
<p>The <span class="caps">D.C.</span> council’s resolution <a href="http://dcclims1.dccouncil.us/images/00001/20140205165317.pdf">called on</a> the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Forest Service to prohibit horizontal hydraulic fracturing in the forest’s headwaters of the Potomac River, the sole source of water for the nation’s capital, citing the risks of pollution and the costs of monitoring for contamination.</p>
<p>It is unclear whether the <span class="caps">DC</span> City Council vote will hold any sway in determining the actual fate of the forest. The decision <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/22/nation/la-na-national-forest-fracking-20140123">whether to permit</a> fracking there primarily rests with the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Forest Service, which is currently updating its long-term management plan for the George Washington National Forest.</p>
<p>As the debate over shale drilling intensifies in the nation’s capitol and across the country, Pennsylvania offers useful lessons for how states have mishandled their forests. Pennsylvania has been ground zero for Marcellus shale development and roughly <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/05/20/lovers-of-pa-s-loyalsock-forest-fight-to-limit-drilling-there/">two thirds</a> of Pennsylvania’s state forest land lies above the Marcellus shale, one of the largest shale plays in the <span class="caps">U.S.</span></p>
<p>Cornell University <a href="http://www.cee.cornell.edu/people/profile.cfm?netid=ari1">Professor Anthony Ingraffea</a> recently reviewed state data on environmental violations in Pennsylvania state forests, including the <a href="http://100,000 acre Loyalsock forest">100,000-acre Loyalsock forest</a> in the north central part of the state, a popular tourist destination and the <a href="http://www.fractracker.org/2013/05/clarence-moore/">focus</a> of a <a href="http://www.fractracker.org/2012/08/loyalsock/">local controversy</a> over fracking.</p>
<p>What Mr. Ingraffea found highlights the hazards of drilling and demonstrates how a powerful industry can overwhelm regulators’ capacity to protect against environmental harms.</p>
<p>State regulators, the data revealed, have been unable to adequately keep tabs on drilling on state lands.</p>
<p>Over 59 percent of the Marcellus wells already drilled in the Loyalsock had never been inspected, Prof. Ingraffea found, and over a quarter of wells on state lands had no inspection reports available to the public.</p>
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<p>Of the wells that were inspected, at least six Marcellus wells in Pennsylvania’s state forest had begun leaking, including at least 2 of the 86 Marcellus wells in the Loyalsock. These leaks developed despite a <a href="http://http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/cs/groups/public/documents/document/dcnr_004055.pdf">long list </a>of additional restrictions for drillers on state land, and promises from state officials to keep an especially sharp eye on drilling on public property.</p>
<p>In fact, across Pennsylvania, the data shows that Marcellus wells have been leaking at a disturbing rate. Up to 13 percent of shale wells drilled before 2009 have already developed leaks in their casings, the protective layer of cement and steel that is designed to isolate oil, gas, wastewater and chemicals from the surrounding rocks and aquifers, Mr. Ingraffea said in a <a href="http://tedxalbany.org/event">December 12 <span class="caps">TED</span>x talk</a>.</p>
<p>Gas well casings are more likely to fail as a well gets older – cement begins to crack and crumble with old age. The oil and gas industry often blames problems in aging wells on outdated drilling and cementing technologies, arguing that new innovations make modern wells safer. But even newer wells have been failing at a striking rate in the Marcellus, Mr. Ingraffea said. “We’ve analyzed very modern well technology and found that the failure rates are about as bad as they’ve always been,” he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxis-vYGM_M&amp;feature=share">told the crowd</a>.</p>
<p>When gas well casings leak, not only can groundwater supplies be contaminated, but the natural gas itself leaks out to the atmosphere. This unburned natural gas is primarily made of methane – one of the most powerful greenhouse gasses, with a climate-changing impact <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/02/2708911/fracking-ipcc-methane/">86 times</a> that of carbon dioxide, or <span class="caps">CO</span>2, in the first decades after it leaks. So when gas wells leak, families nearby can lose their <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/gas-methane-water-idUSL2N0F015920130624">drinking water supplies</a> and the impact on the climate <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/02/14/new-study-shows-total-north-american-methane-leaks-far-worse-epa-estimates">can be significant</a>.</p>
<p>With so many wells going uninspected, it’s difficult to pin down just how many Marcellus wells have developed leaks. State inspectors also do not always record the details of their findings, meaning that it’s possible the true leakage rate is even higher than public data would suggest.</p>
<p>Pennsylvania has repeatedly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?pagewanted=all">drawn national attention</a> for its inability – and at times apparent reluctance – to police the drilling boom.</p>
<p>Dozens of past and contemporary state officials had ties to the oil and gas industry, a <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2013/03/10/Fracking-s-revolving-door-draws-a-warning/stories/201303100186">2013 report</a> by the Public Accountability Initiative on Pennsylvania’s “revolving door” between industry and state found, including 28 who left their jobs to go work for the industry they had policed. </p>
<p>Between 2000 and 2012, the oil and gas industry made over $8 million in campaign contribution to state-level politicians in Pennsylvania, a <a href="http://www.conservationpa.org/gas-industry-spends-23-million-to-influence-pa-officials/">report</a> by Common Cause <span class="caps">PA</span> and the Conversation Voters of <span class="caps">PA</span> found, and the industry spent an additional $15.7 million on lobbying at the state level between 2007 and 2012.</p>
<p>And a string of environmental regulators have been caught in embarrassing gaffes: in February, it was revealed that a senior official at the Department of Environmental Protection was investing in the oil and gas industry <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2014/02/03/senior-dep-official-invested-in-natural-gas-companies/">while he held office</a>, a Department of Conservation and Natural Resources official <a href="http://www.politicspa.com/dcnr-official-compares-gasland%E2%80%99s-josh-fox-to-nazi-propagandeer-joseph-goebbels/22429/">publicly compared</a> <em>Gasland</em> filmmaker Josh Fox to the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, and the former head of the <span class="caps">DEP</span>, Michael Krancer, stepped down from office while <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/03/radioactive-materials-marcellus-shale-continue-draw-concern">under investigation </a>by the state’s auditor general for how his office handled water contamination testing related to shale gas.</p>
<p>And all indications suggest that Pennsylvania officials plan to keep moving full speed ahead into the drilling boom, including where public lands are concerned.</p>
<p>Last month, Pennsylvania’s governor Tom Corbett announced plans to reverse a 2010 moratorium and raise $75 million by leasing state forest land for shale gas extraction, which the Philadelphia Inquirer <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2014-02-06/news/47053354_1_new-gas-leases-state-lands-forest-lands">calculated</a> will require allowing drilling beneath 25,000 acres of public forests.</p>
<p>Although the Governor’s plan would not allow drillers so-called “surface rights,” or the right to use the surface of newly-leased land for drilling pads, drillers could fracture underneath the forests from well pads on nearby private land – and on state lands whose mineral rights were leased or sold before the moratorium was put in place.</p>
<p>Before the moratorium, Pennsylvania had already leased 385,400 acres to oil and gas companies, and the state does not own the mineral rights to another 290,000 acres eyed by drillers. Corbett’s new plan makes drilling in and near state forests all the more attractive to oil and gas companies by allowing them to bundle in acreage that is currently off-limits.</p>
<p>“The Loyalsock State Forest has become a truly wild and undisturbed part of Pennsylvania. For many, it is Pennsylvania’s 'Wild Alaska' – a place that deserves the best protection we can give it,” said Paul Zeph, Director of Conservation for Audubon <span class="caps">PA</span>, <a href="http://www.pennenvironment.org/news/pae/12000-pennsylvanians-demand-%E2%80%9Cprotect-loyalsock-fracking%E2%80%9D">in reaction</a> to Mr. Corbett's announcement. “The Governor should not be working in secrecy to get the most money for drilling in this critical habitat; but rather should be working publicly to get the most protection for it.”</p>
<p>But as drillers chip away at protections for Pennsylvania's last wilderness areas – which National Geographic <a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/12/methane/lavelle-text">calls</a> home to “some 2,000 trout streams and one of the darkest night skies in the East” – the damage done is mounting. Just upstream from <a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g52666-d2254459-Reviews-Worlds_End_State_Park-Forksville_Pennsylvania.html">World's End State Park</a>, a 2012 pipeline construction accident <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2012/09/05/pipeline-construction-spill-caught-on-camera/">sullied</a> Loyalsock Creek. Hiking planning guides now describe not only scenic vistas but also wilderness fracking: “This part of the tour also includes a pig launcher, used to clean the pipes; recently fracked well pads (part of your State Forest that is now off limits); another possible compressor pad site; a 14.8 million gallon reservoir for fracking water; large water pipes along the berm,” reads a Sierra Club <a href="http://pennsylvania.sierraclub.org/moshannon/OTT/OTT13-09_Loyalsock_SF.htm">tour site</a>.</p>
<p>With <a href="http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/2014/02/frackgate-ohio-governors-campaign-to-frack-parks.html">pressure rising</a> to <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/02/18/Reps-call-for-investigation-into-ODNR-fracking-plan.html">drill</a> on public lands nationwide, it's worth keeping a sharp eye on what's been happening in Pennsylvania and the ways that regulators have tried, and at times failed, to control the boom.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:11px;">Photo Credit:<em><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-173125250/stock-photo-bridge-on-a-trail-through-the-forest-at-codorus-state-park-pennsylvania.html?src=Hadcw5hT_ywwv4z7UUektA-1-13"> Bridge on a trail through the forest at Codorus State Park, Pennsylvania</a></em>, via Shutterstock.</span></p>
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<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15489">hydraulic fracuturing</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15490">state forest</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12653">Public Lands</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13647">national forests</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15491">Loyalsock</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15499">Clarence Moore</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15493">Prof. Anthony Ingraffea</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7832">Tony Ingraffea</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6870">Cornell</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15494">Potomac River</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6849">U.S. Forest Service</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15495">Washington D.C. city council</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15496">Pennyslvania</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6305">oil and gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15497">leases</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15498">surface rights</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6499">Drilling</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13656">well pads</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10955">Wilderness</a></div></div></div>Tue, 11 Mar 2014 12:00:00 +0000Sharon Kelly7907 at http://www.desmogblog.comBig Oil PR Pros, Lobbyists Dominate EDF Fracking Climate Study Steering Committeehttp://www.desmogblog.com/2013/09/18/big-oil-pr-pros-lobbyists-edf-fracking-climate-study-steering-committee
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/Steering%20off%20the%20Cliff.jpeg?itok=BFDCUITF" width="200" height="228" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Alongside releasing its <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/09/10/1304880110">controversial findings on fugitive methane emissions</a> caused by <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future">hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)</a> on September 16, University of Texas-Austin also unveiled an industry-stacked <a href="http://dept.ceer.utexas.edu/methane/study/steering.cfm">Steering Committee roster for the study</a> it conducted in concert with Environmental Defense Fund (<span class="caps">EDF</span>).</p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Stacked with former and current oil industry lobbyists, policy professionals and business executives, the Steering Committee is proof positive of the conflicts of interest evident in the roster of</span><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/09/16/frackademia-people-money-behind-edf-fracking-methane-emissions-study" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> people and funding behind the “frackademia” study</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Only two out of the 11 members of the Steering Committee besides lead author and </span><a href="http://www.che.utexas.edu/faculty-staff/faculty-directory/david-t-allen-phd/" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"><span class="caps">UT</span>-Austin Professor David Allen</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> have a science background relevant to onshore fracking. </span></p>
<p>That study found fugitive methane emissions at the well pad to be 2%-4% lower than discovered by the non-industry funded groundbreaking<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/cornell-fracking-shale-gas-more-dangerous-than-coal-climate"> April 2011 Cornell University study</a> co-authored by Anthony Ingraffea and Robert Howarth.</p>
<p>The Cornell study concluded <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/emissions-from-shale-gas-worse-than-coal-2011-4">fracking is worse for the climate than coal</a> combustion when measured over its entire lifecycle. </p>
<p><em>Webster's Dictionary</em> <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/steering+committee">defines a Steering Committee</a> as “a committee, especially of a deliberative or legislative body, that prepares the agenda of a session.”</p>
<p>In the case of the <span class="caps">EDF</span> study - based on the oddly rosy findings - it seems plausible the industry-stacked Committee drove the report in a direction beneficial to oil industry profits rather than science. </p>
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<h3>
Steering Committee: <span class="caps">PR</span> Pros, Lobbyists, Policy Wonks</h3>
<p>The following is a list of Steering Committee members working for Big Oil. </p>
<p>1.) <strong><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/tedwurfel">Ted Wurfel</a>, Health, Safety, Environment and Operational Integrity Manager for Talisman Energy</strong>: Wurfel is one of two Steering Committee members besides lead author Allen with a science degree relevant to onshore drilling, <span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">with an engineering academic background, according to <em>LinkedIn</em>.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"><img alt="" src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Screen%20Shot%202013-09-17%20at%2010.10.27%20PM.png" style="width: 225px; height: 170px;" /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:8px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Ted Wurfel; Photo Credit: </span><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/%20Ted%20Wurfel%20PA%20Lobbying%20Profile.pdf"><em><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Pennsylvania Lobbying Disclosure website</span></em></a></span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">He's also a <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/%20Ted%20Wurfel%20PA%20Lobbying%20Profile.pdf">registered lo</a></span><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/%20Ted%20Wurfel%20PA%20Lobbying%20Profile.pdf"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">bbyist in Pennsylvania</span></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> - </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">a state located in the heart of the </span><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/5401" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Marcellus Shale</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> basin - and </span><a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/database/lobbyist.phtml?l=225223" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">formerly lobbied for Chief Oil and Gas</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">. </span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">2.) </span><strong><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/paul-krishna/11/329/281">Paul Krishna</a>, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Manager of Environmental, Health <span class="amp">&amp;</span> Safety Issues at ExxonMobil/<span class="caps">XTO</span> Energy</span></strong><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">: Krishna is the other </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Steering Committee member with</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> a science degree relevant to onshore drilling, with an undergraduate degree in g</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">eology and a masters in geosciences. </span></p>
<p>3.) <strong><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-mcbride/5/2a4/58">David McBride</a>, Vice President of Environmental and Human Services at Anadarko Petroleum</strong>: McBride earned a degree in Marine Biology before going to law school and pursuing his career in the oil industry.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Screen%20Shot%202013-09-17%20at%207.29.24%20PM.png" style="width: 200px; height: 194px;" /></p>
<p><span style="font-size:8px;"> Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-mcbride/5/2a4/58"><em>LinkedIn</em></a></span></p>
<p>4.) <strong><a href="http://littlesis.org/person/129463/Jeffrey_Kupfer">Jeffrey Kupfer</a></strong> works as a non-registered lobbyist for Chevron - officially titled a “Senior Advisor for Government Affairs.” <a href="http://marcelluscoalition.org/about/executive-committee/" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Kupfer sits on the Executive Board of the Marcellus Shale Coalition</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">, the industry's lobbying arm in Pennsylvania.</span></p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Screen%20Shot%202013-09-17%20at%208.18.25%20PM.png" style="width: 225px; height: 289px;" /></p>
<p><span style="font-size:8px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Jeffrey Kupfer; Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.id.doe.gov/news/PressReleases/PR080904.htm"><em><span class="caps">U.S.</span> Department of Energy</em></a> </span></span></p>
<p>He sits on Pennsylvania Republican Gov. Tom Corbett's industry-stacked <a href="http://public-accountability.org/wp-content/uploads/Fracking-and-the-Revolving-Door-in-Pennsylvania.pdf">Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission</a> alongside one of the industry's first “frackademics,” <a href="http://littlesis.org/person/85558/Terry_Engelder">Terry Engelder of Penn State University</a>.</p>
<p>Kupfer also sits on <a href="http://www.mde.state.md.us/programs/Land/mining/marcellus/Pages/Commission.aspx">Maryland's Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Initiative Advisory Commission</a>.</p>
<p>Prior to working for Chevron, Kupfer passed through the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Government-industry_revolving_door">government-industry revolving door</a> and <a href="http://www.cit.cmu.edu/alumni/speaker_series/09_15_2011/bios.html#kupfer">worked as Deputy <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Secretary of State</a> for President George W. Bush from 2006-2009 under former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He also spent time as the <a href="http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-profiles/faculty-details/index.aspx?faculty_id=342">State Department's Chief Operating Officer</a> under Rice.</p>
<p>Chevron is one of the <a href="http://www.sustainableshale.org/strategic-partners/">dues-paying members of the Center for Sustainable Shale Development</a> - described as the “<a href="http://public-accountability.org/wp-content/uploads/big_green_fracking_machine.pdf">Big Green Fracking Machine</a>” by <em>Public Accountability Initiative</em> - alongside <span class="caps">EDF</span>.</p>
<p>5.) <strong><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dick-francis/13/185/149">Dick Francis</a></strong> serves as Manager of Regulatory Policy for Shell Oil, another <a href="http://www.sustainableshale.org/strategic-partners/">dues-paying member of the Center for Sustainable Shale Development</a>.</p>
<p>6.) <strong><a href="http://www.swn.com/aboutswn/pages/corporateofficers.aspx">James Bolander</a></strong> serves as Senior Vice President Resource Development for Southwestern Energy.</p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">7.) </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/susan-spratlen/64/6a5/346"><strong>Susan Spratlen</strong></a> serves as head of Communications at Pioneer Resources and has an accounting undergraduate academic background.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">8.) <strong><a href="http://littlesis.org/person/118512/David_Keane">David Keane</a> </strong>is <span class="caps">BG</span> Group's </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Vice President of Policy and Corporate Affairs</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> and has a business school academic background. </span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Keane <a href="http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/folioproxy.asp?url=http://www.legis.state.ak.us/cgi-bin/folioisa.dll/cm25/query=*/doc/%7Bt12934%7D/pageitems=%7Bbody%7D?">testified on behalf of the Alaska Gas Pipeline</a> (now known as the <a href="http://www.gasline.alaska.gov/newsroom/Presentations/SCLNG%20-%20HRES%20Lunch%20&amp;%20Learn%202.19.13.pdf">South Central <span class="caps">LNG</span> project</a>) - co-owned <a href="http://www.gasline.alaska.gov/newsroom/Presentations/SCLNG%20-%20HRES%20Lunch%20&amp;%20Learn%202.19.13.pdf">by Transcanada, ExxonMobil, <span class="caps">BP</span> and ConocoPhillips</a> - in front of the Alaska state legislature in February 2008. </span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">He also serves on the <a href="http://littlesis.org/person/118512/David_Keane">Board of Directors of </a></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://littlesis.org/person/118512/David_Keane">Center for Liquefied Natural Gas</a>.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">9.) <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jill-e-cooper/5/627/89b"><strong>Jill Cooper</strong></a></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> serves as </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Group Lead for the <span class="caps">US</span> Division of the Environment for Encana. Her academic background is in environmental law and she also has a masters in business.</span></p>
<h3>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Steering Off the Climate Cliff?</span></h3>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"><span class="caps">EDF</span>'s study has already won praise from the <em><a href="http://www.api.org/news-and-media/news/newsitems/2013/sept-2013/study-methane-emissions-from-natural-gas-production-are-lower-than-previously-estimated">American Petroleum Institute</a></em>, <a href="http://energyindepth.org/national/bombshell-study-confirms-low-methane-leakage-from-shale-gas/"><em>Energy in Depth</em></a>, <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/03/exposed-fracknation-deploys-tobacco-playbook-response-gasland-2">industry-funded</a> <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/05/28/fracknation-part-two-koch-industries-ties-bind">propaganda</a> film “<a href="https://twitter.com/FrackNation/status/380004574322384896">FrackNation</a>,” and the right-wing news website founded by Glenn Beck, <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/16/study-findings-alleviate-some-anti-fracking-fears/"><em>The Blaze</em></a>.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"><em>Greenpeace <span class="caps">USA</span></em> Executive Director Phil Radford's worst case scenario has come true.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">“At worst, [the study] will be used as <span class="caps">PR</span> by the natural gas industry to promote their pollution,” <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-radford/dont-let-the-industry-fra_b_3936456.html">Radford wrote soon after the study's release</a>. </span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">“In fact, <a href="http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/04/fracking-leaks-may-make-gas-dirtier-coal">methane is 105 times more powerful than carbon pollution</a> as a global warming pollutant [during its first 20 years in the atmosphere], so figuring out its real climate impacts has very real consequences for us going forward.”</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">This raises the key question: could the Steering Committee's agenda steer us all off the climate cliff? </span></p>
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<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8983">EDF</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13786">David Allen</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5762">talisman energy</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13793">Steerring Committee</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7545">BG Group</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9228">Public Accountability Initiative</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/encana">encana</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13150">South Central LNG</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13746">Center for Sustainable Shale Development</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13402">Southwestern Energy</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13794">Pioneer Resources</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/657">ExxonMobil</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/chevron">chevron</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/648">shell oil</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6647">Marcellus Shale Coalition</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7662">Anadarko Petroleum</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11517">XTO</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13795">Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13796">Frackdemia</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13797">Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Initiative Advisory Commission</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12027">Terry Engelder</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9731">University of Texas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9732">UT-Austin</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13798">Center for Liquefied Natural Gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13799">Alaska Gas Pipeline</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/3066">environmental defense fund</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13781">Susan Spratlen</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2203">condoleezza rice</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/912">george w. bush</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13782">David McBride</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13783">Ted Wurfel</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1907">methane</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2964">Cornell University</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6010">Anthony Ingraffea</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6011">Robert Howarth</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7832">Tony Ingraffea</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7829">Bob Howarth</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7406">Phil Radford</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7407">Greenpeace USA</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13784">Jeffrey Kupfer</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13785">Jeff Kupfer</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12833">Atlas Energy</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13787">Jim Bolander</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13788">Jill Cooper</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13789">Dick Francis</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13790">David Keane</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13791">Paul Krishna</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6344">unconventional gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8931">unconventional oil</a></div></div></div>Wed, 18 Sep 2013 12:00:00 +0000Steve Horn7475 at http://www.desmogblog.comKeystone XL Influence Peddling Web Extends into PA Governor's Race Via Katie McGintyhttp://www.desmogblog.com/2013/08/15/keystone-xl-influence-peddling-web-extends-pa-governor-race-katie-mcginty
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/Katie%20McGinty.png?itok=addQjJgz" width="142" height="200" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Pennsylvania Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate and former head of the <span class="caps">PA</span> Department of Environmental Protection, Kathleen “Katie” McGinty, has <a href="http://www.politicspa.com/mcginty-hires-skdknickerbocker/50085/">hired powerful <span class="caps">PR</span> firm <span class="caps">SKDK</span>nickerbocker for her campaign's communications efforts</a>.</p>
<p><span class="caps">SKDK</span>nickerbocker - once known as <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Squier_Knapp_Dunn">Squier Knapp Dunn</a> - is co-owned by President Barack Obama's former Communications Director <a href="http://www.skdknick.com/about/anita-dun/">Anita Dunn</a> and a member of Obama's national media team for his 2008 run for President, <a href="http://www.skdknick.com/about/bill-knapp/">Bill Knapp</a>. Both Dunn and Knapp previously did <span class="caps">PR</span> for <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Secretary of State John Kerry's 2004 run for President, as well.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/05/03/obama-anita-dunn-public-relations-keystone-xl-pipeline-tar-sands-rail-transport">One of <span class="caps">SKDK</span>nickerbocker's key clients is TransCanada</a>, owner of the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/5857">Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span></a> tar sands <a href="http://priceofoil.org/2013/07/11/keystone-xl-the-key-to-crude-exports-new-report/">export pipeline</a>.</p>
<p>Another key <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/05/03/obama-anita-dunn-public-relations-keystone-xl-pipeline-tar-sands-rail-transport"><span class="caps">SKDK</span>nickerbocker client: Association of American Railroads</a>, that industry's version of the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/643">American Petroleum Institute</a>. Rail is an increasingly viable alternative to pipelines for bringing <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/02/15/oil-aboard-tar-sands-nexen-rail-stalled-pipelines">tar sands</a> - and <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/02/oil-tracks-how-rail-quietly-picking-pipeline-s-slack">fracked oil</a> - to market. </p>
<p>Both McGinty and Dunn also have key marital connections with skin in the game for the looming decision over the prospective northern half of Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span>: Karl Hausker and Robert “Bob” Bauer, respectively. </p>
<!--break-->
<h3>
Like Husband, Like Wife</h3>
<h3>
<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/08/06/fracking-ties-flawed-state-dept-keystone-xl-environmental-review" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Hausker is the former Vice President of <span class="caps">ICF</span> International</a><span style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">, one of the </span><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/03/11/state-department-keystone-xl-study-oil-industry-big-tobacco-fracking" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">three contractors chosen by TransCanada</a><span style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> to do the now hotly contested <span class="caps">U.S.</span> State Department Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span> environmental review.</span></h3>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Karl%20Hausker_0.png" style="width: 150px; height: 175px;" /></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em; font-size: 7.777778148651123px;">Karl Hausker: </span><a href="http://littlesis.org/person/85197/Karl_Hausker" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em; font-size: 7.777778148651123px;">Photo via LittleSis.org</a></p>
<p><span class="caps">ICF</span> and the more-publicized <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/12225">Environmental Resources Management, Inc. (<span class="caps">ERM</span> Group)</a> concluded that Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span>'s northern half would have negligible climate change impacts. Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span>'s southern half - <a href="http://www.gulf-coast-pipeline.com/">TransCanada's Gulf Coast Pipeline</a> - is <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/07/28/obamas-keystone-comments-give-opponents-reason-for-hope/">95-percent built</a> and ready to send <a href="http://www.gulf-coast-pipeline.com/about/the-projects/">700,000 barrels a day of tar sands</a> from Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas by year's end.</p>
<p>A previous <em>DeSmog</em> investigation also revealed Hausker and McGinty have <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/08/06/fracking-ties-flawed-state-dept-keystone-xl-environmental-review">myriad ties to the controversial horizontal drilling</a> process known as <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/">hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)</a>, both at the federal and state level.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Bob%20Bauer%20Laughing%20with%20Obama.jpg" style="width: 275px; height: 184px;" /></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 8.181818008422852px; line-height: 11.988636016845703px;">Photo Credit: Facebook</span><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/16/keystone-xl-scandal-obama-bauer-dunn-perkins-transcanada">Bauer is President Obama's personal attorney</a>, former White House Counsel and Obama's election law attorney for the 2008 and 2012 elections, as well as John Kerry's 2004 election law attorney. Best known for bending election law to help corporations flood electoral races with more and more money, the private law firm he works at - Perkins Coie - has an attorney-client relationship with TransCanada in Alaska. </p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Bob%20Bauer%20and%20Anita%20Dunn_0.jpg" style="width: 350px; height: 261px;" /></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 8px; line-height: 12px;">Photo Credit: Facebook</span></p>
<h3>
Pennsylvania's Fracked!</h3>
<p>The top three front-runners for governor in Pennsylvania's gubernatorial campaign are all fracking cheerleaders: McGinty; <span class="caps">DEP</span> head after McGinty, Democrat <a href="http://johnhanger.blogspot.com/">John Hanger</a>; and the incumbent, Republican Tom Corbett. </p>
<p>McGinty currently works for the shale gas industry as <span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">a </span><a href="http://www.elementpartners.com/team-kathleenmcginty.html" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">business partner</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> of </span><a href="http://www.elementpartners.com/team-edrendell.html" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Ed Rendell's at Element Partners</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">, which </span><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/02/05/ed-rendell-range-resources-obama-epa-texas-fracking-water-contamination-lawsuit" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">provides investment capital to shale gas industry start-ups</a>.</p>
<p>She also sat on the industry-stacked <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-study-panel-filled-gas-industry-insiders"><span class="caps">U.S.</span> Department of Energy Fracking Subcommittee</a>, which penned the fracking chemical disclosure standards that <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/alec-wasn-t-first-industry-trojan-horse-behind-fracking-disclosure-bill-enter-council-state-governments">would eventually become an American Legislative Exchange Council (<span class="caps">ALEC</span>) model bill</a> and part of <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/05/20/obama-admin-approves-alec-model-bill-fracking-chemical-fluid-disclosure-public-lands">President Obama's Department of Interior's rules for fracking on public lands</a>. </p>
<p>John Hanger - a key character in “Gasland” - has increasingly become a fracking apologist since leaving the <span class="caps">DEP</span> when Corbett won the 2010 election. So much so, in fact, he was interviewed for the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/5976">Energy In Depth</a>-produced propaganda film, “<a href="http://blog.littlesis.org/2012/06/13/fracking-industrys-answer-to-gasland-devised-by-astroturf-lobbying-group-and-political-ad-agency/">Truthland</a>.”</p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-text-after-video field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Last winter, Hanger penned<a href="http://johnhanger.blogspot.com/2012/11/debunking-latest-attacks-on-shale-gas.html"> an article criticizing <em>DeSmog</em>'s coverage</a> of the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/8104">shale gas bubble</a>, and he recently wrote a telling piece for <em>The Guardian</em> titled, “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/08/shale-gas-fracking-good-for-environment">If you care about the environment, you should welcome natural gas fracking</a>.” Telling because Cornell University scientists have discovered <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/cornell-fracking-shale-gas-more-dangerous-than-coal-climate">fracking is dirtier than coal production when measured over its entire lifecycle</a>.</p>
<p>And under Corbett, Pennsylvania has more or less become a “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic">banana republic</a>” run by a “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Banana-Republicans-Turning-America-One-Party/dp/1585423424">Banana Republican</a>,” with the industry running roughshod over rural communities left and right with little accountability - nay, rewarded for doing so. <a href="http://marcellusmoney.org/candidate/corbett-tom">Corbett raised over $1.8 million from the frackers for his 2010 electoral campaign</a> and the same is likely in the cards for 2014.</p>
<p>To put it bluntly and succinctly: Pennsylvania's fracked. Which means at the end of the day, we all are. </p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; font-size: 8px; line-height: 1.5em;">Katie McGinty: </span><a href="http://littlesis.org/person/61424/Kathleen_A_McGinty/images" style="color: rgb(255, 205, 51); letter-spacing: 0.03em; font-size: 8px; line-height: 1.5em;">Photo via LittleSis.org</a></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12552">SKDKnickerbocker</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8104">shale gas bubble</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6344">unconventional gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6853">ALEC</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6907">american legislative exchange council</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8410">Department of Interior</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12219">Katie McGinty</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12221">Karl Hausker</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12551">Anita Dunn</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12220">Kathleen McGinty</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5857">Keystone XL</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2632">tar sands</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/oil-sands">oil sands</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5420">TransCanada</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13153">Robert Bauer</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13152">Bob Bauer</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12269">ERM Group</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13142">Environmental Resources Management Inc.</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1269">John Kerry</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13448">Squier Knapp Dunn</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2625">pennsylvania</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6041">Ed Rendell</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6685">Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12218">ICF International</a></div></div></div>Thu, 15 Aug 2013 15:25:13 +0000Steve Horn7404 at http://www.desmogblog.comAnother Pennsylvania Wastewater Treatment Plant Accused of Illegally Disposing Radioactive Fracking Wastehttp://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/17/another-pennsylvania-wastewater-treatment-plant-accused-illegally-disposing-fracking-radioactive-waste
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/WTC2.jpg?itok=nRqZei6k" width="200" height="120" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>A Pennsylvania industrial wastewater treatment plant has been illegally accepting oil and gas wastewater and polluting the Allegheny river with radioactive waste and other pollutants, according to an environmental group which announced today that it is suing the plant.<br />
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“Waste Treatment Corporation has been illegally discharging oil and gas wastewater since at least 2003, and continues to discharge such wastewater without authorization under the Clean Water Act and the Clean Streams Law,” the notice of intent to sue delivered by Clean Water Action reads.<br />
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Many pollutants associated with oil and gas drilling – including chlorides, bromides, strontium and magnesium – were discovered immediately downstream of the plant’s discharge pipe in Warren, <span class="caps">PA</span>, state regulators discovered in January of this year. Upstream of the plant, those same contaminants were found at levels 1 percent or less than those downstream, or were not present at all.<br />
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State officials also discovered that the sediments immediately downstream from the plant were tainted with high levels of radium-226, radium-228 and uranium. Those particular radioactive elements are known to be found at especially levels in wastewater from Marcellus shale gas drilling and fracking, and state regulators have warned that the radioactive materials would tend to accumulate in river sediment downstream from plants accepting Marcellus waste.<br />
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“To us, that says that they are discharging Marcellus Shale wastewater, although no one admits to sending it to them,” said Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania State Director for Clean Water Action.</p>
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<p>A request for comment sent to Waste Treatment Corporation has not yet been answered.<br />
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The amount of radioactivity found in the Allegheny riverbed is striking. Sediments just downstream of the Waste Treatment Corporation’s discharge pipe contained over 50 picocuries per gram (pCi/g) of radium-226, state records show. To put that number in rough context, the levels in found in the Allegheny are 10 times those that <span class="caps">EPA</span> <a href="http://www.epa.gov/superfund/health/conmedia/soil/cleanup.htm">requires</a> the surface soil at cleaned-up uranium mining sites to achieve.<br />
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Most of the radioactive wastes associated with fracking are too weak to cause harm to people unless they are breathed in, drank, or eaten, since the alpha and beta radioactivity they primarily give off is too weak to get past people’s skin. But at the levels discovered by state regulators, the dirt from the Allegheny’s riverbed could potentially be radioactive enough to cause harm to people who are simply near it.<br />
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Once-confidential oil and gas industry <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?pagewanted=4&amp;ref=drillingdown">studies</a> have also pointed to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-documents-1.html#document/p417/a9945">another risk</a> from disposing of radioactive materials from drilling or fracking in waterways – the risk to fish and aquatic life like crustaceans and mollusks. Radium bioaccumulates in fish, meaning that the more a fish ingests contaminated water or soil over its lifetime, the more radium it will contain. If people eat those fish, those radioactive materials consumed along with the fish can do harm to people’s internal organs.<br />
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In their January study, state officials did not test fish or other animals like large clams or mussels from the Allegheny to see whether they were carrying radium or other pollutants. But they did study smaller organisms, and concluded that the wastewater being discharged after being processed by Waste Treatment Corporation into the Allegheny was “negatively impacting” aquatic life, specifically bugs, snails and small mollusks in the river. Many pollution-sensitive creatures found upstream of the plant’s discharge pipe were missing downstream from the pipe.</p>
<p>“Those are the base of the food pyramid for large species like fish that people are generally more concerned about,” Mr. Arnowitt said.</p>
<p>Just last month, DeSmog <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/03/radioactive-materials-marcellus-shale-continue-draw-concern">reported</a> that another industrial wastewater treatment plant was sanctioned by the <span class="caps">EPA</span> for illegally discharging untreated Marcellus waste. Environmental regulators also discovered high levels of radium around the discharge pipe at the Pennsylvania Brine Treatment Josephine plant. That plant was fined over $80,000 and the owner agreed to make up to $30 million in upgrades before accepting any more Marcellus shale wastewater.<br />
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The Clean Water Action lawsuit also calls attention to a troubling lack of record keeping for the toxic wastewater generated by the shale drilling boom, raising the possibility that more illegal dumping could be uncovered in the future.<br /><br />
“Currently, there are no companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale that report sending wastewater to <span class="caps">WTC</span> for disposal,” a Clean Water Action statement says, referring to Waste Treatment Corporation by its initials. “However, the presence of radioactive materials in <span class="caps">WTC</span>’s discharge indicates that <span class="caps">WTC</span>’s wastewater likely comes, at least in part, from Marcellus Shale wells.”<br /><br />
In 2011, after problems with wastewater disposal made <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?pagewanted=all">national headlines</a>, many industrial wastewater treatment plants said that they stopped taking Marcellus wastewater and were only taking conventional oil and gas wastewater, Mr. Arnowitt said. But the levels of contaminants – including the ones associated with Marcellus waste – in the discharge at many wastewater plants never changed, he said.<br /><br />
“It was hard to figure out why everyone believed what they were saying,” he added.<br />
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With a track record like this, some Pennsylvanians are skeptical about their state government’s capacity to police the drilling boom. These doubts only deepened when <a href="http://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/Legis/PN/Public/btCheck.cfm?txtType=PDF&amp;sessYr=2013&amp;sessInd=0&amp;billBody=S&amp;billTyp=B&amp;billNbr=0259&amp;pn=1290">Senate Bill 259</a> was <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/07/09/corbett-signs-controversial-bill-giving-drillers-power-to-pool-leases/">signed into law</a> by Governor Corbett earlier this month. The bill was originally intended to protect landowners by making royalty payments for people who leased their lands to drillers more transparent.<br />
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But a little-noticed provision slipped into that bill as an amendment has sparked an outcry. The amendment would allow drillers to pool together acreage owned by many different people and drill it all together, even if a lease wouldn’t otherwise allow the oil and gas company to do so. This move will especially facilitate Marcellus shale drilling and fracking, which often involves drilling a well horizontally under many properties.<br /><br />
“This pooling language had no place in this bill,” Trevor Walczak , vice president of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Association of Royalty Owners <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/07/09/corbett-signs-controversial-bill-giving-drillers-power-to-pool-leases/">told local reporters</a>. ”If you wanted to address pooling, we should have been doing it in a stand alone bill we could debate, not hiding it in here and fast-tracking it through.”</p>
<p>State Representative Rep. Garth Everett, who introduced the language in the bill, <a href="http://triblive.com/business/headlines/4303895-74/bill-pooling-provision#axzz2YlOCLYKF">told</a> Pennsylvania’s TribLive he had no idea whether someone from the oil and gas industry suggested to him that provision be included. It drew little attention or debate before the bill was enacted.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>I'm serious. I don't know who exactly proposed (that amendment). We had a lot of proposals going into the bill. Legislation is brought to us by staff. I send them ideas, and they put them into a form of legislation and come back. Where the idea came from, who proposed this … section, I don't know who that individual was,” he said.</p>
<p>While Pennsylvania struggles to regulate the drilling industry, local activists are finding success in organizing outside of Harrisburg.<br /><br />
In one of Pennsylvania’s other major watersheds, the Delaware River basin, some are hailing the pull-out announced this week by two natural gas companies, Hess Corporation and Newfield Exploration Company, as a major victory for those looking to protect the Delaware watershed, which provides drinking water to 15 million people, including Philadelphia and half of New York City.</p>
<p>The two companies sent a letter informing roughly 1,300 landowners that they were abandoning plans to drill their holdings in the Delaware river basin. The landowers were part of the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance, and had negotiated their lease collectively.</p>
<p>“The lease is gone. It is no longer in force. They are releasing the properties,” the group's spokesman, Peter Wynne, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/AP191f2ae8055d4396b07edee9356b3f31.html">said Monday</a>.</p>
<p>That particular region has drawn international attention, in part because it's home to film-maker Josh Fox, director of Gasland <span class="caps">II</span>, who first began investigating fracking after and oil and gas company sent him an offer to lease his family's land.<br /><br />
“This proves that people, organized and passionate can actually win sometimes,” Mr. Fox <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RealTruthNow/posts/587596064626399">said</a>. “In the grand scheme of things, this is a small victory, but it's <span class="caps">HUGE</span>. It's the Upper Delaware.”<br /><br />
Economics played a major role in the lease cancellations. Newfield Exploration said the price of gas had dropped too low to justify holding leases in the area. The Delaware River Basin, unlike most of Pennyslvania, has been under a shale drilling moratorium since the Marcellus rush began.<br /><br />
“There were repeated complaints about the moratorium and the regulatory confusion, because they could not make any plans,” <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/07/16/gas-companies-drop-wayne-county-leases/">said</a> Mr. Wynne, whose organization has said it intends to sue over the continuing moratorium and their loss of expected royalty payments. “There’s no end in sight so that added up to them saying the heck with it.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:9px;">Photo Credit: Clean Water Action</span></p>
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<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6687">Clean Water Action</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13207">waste treatment corporation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13208">radioactive fracking waste</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13209">radium-226</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13210">radium-228</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13211">uranium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6843">wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13212">Allegheny River</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2920">pollution</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13213">health impacts from fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8479">radon</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5760">josh fox</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13214">Gasland II</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7809">Delaware River Basin</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13225">radioactivity from fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13226">shale gas wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6074">fracking wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13227">wastewater disposal</a></div></div></div>Thu, 18 Jul 2013 15:02:00 +0000Sharon Kelly7330 at http://www.desmogblog.comA Gamble on Shale Job Growth Fails to Pay Off for Governor Corbett, as Fracking Worries Grow Nationwidehttp://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/20/gamble-fracking-job-growth-fails-pay-governor-fracking-worries-grow-nationwide
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/harrisburg.jpg?itok=N8swAwfB" width="200" height="133" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Last Friday in Philadelphia, a small crowd gathered outside the Franklin Institute, protest signs in hand. Only a few days before, word went out that Governor Tom Corbett, one of the nation’s least popular governors, would be in Philadelphia, a city that has borne the brunt of many of Mr. Corbett’s crippling <a href="http://fightforphilly.org/2013/06/14/broad-coalition-of-philadelphians-to-protest-gov-corbett-visit-at-shale-gas-conference/">budget cuts</a>, and protest organizers said they had mobilized fast.<br /><br />
Inside the museum, Mr. Corbett was <a href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/06/14/critics-challenge-gov-corbett-at-fracking-industry-meeting-in-philadelphia/">speaking</a> at a shale gas summit sponsored by the Keystone Energy Forum, and he was once again touting the benefits of the Marcellus fracking boom.<br /><br />
“The shale gas industry is helping to sustain more than 240,000 jobs in every corner of our state,” Corbett <a href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/06/14/critics-challenge-gov-corbett-at-fracking-industry-meeting-in-philadelphia/">said</a>. (Many analysts say these numbers are <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2013-05-06/business/39044266_1_energy-development-shale-gas-marcellus-shale-coalition">overblown</a> and the impact on the state’s employment has been negligible.)<br /><br />
The speech was textbook Corbett — unapologetic championing of the oil and gas industry, puzzlement at the mounting tide of opposition to fracking, a deep-seated faith in the good intentions of drillers and the benefits they want to bring to Pennsylvania and America.</p>
<p>During this speech, Mr. Corbett made no mention of one drilling services company — Minuteman Environmental Services — that he had <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/FBI-raids-plant-Corbett-hailed-last-year-as-American-success-story.html">extolled</a> as “an American success story” a year ago in a similar speech only to see the company raided by the <span class="caps">FBI</span> months later.</p>
<p>And for all the talk about jobs and drilling, no one in the crowd asked him about the recent ranking of Pennsylvania as 49th of 50 states in terms of new job creation.</p>
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<p>Mr. Corbett has seen plummeting support, not just in Philadelphia, but in rural areas across Pennsylvania. But even as state voters have increasingly grown disenchanted with his policies, Mr. Corbett has remained intractable.<br /><br />
“First thing they wanted to do was impose a tax on this new industry just as it was growing in Pennsylvania,” said Mr. Corbett, describing how his administration decided instead to charge drillers an impact fee, a move backed by the gas industry which critics have <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/How_Corbett_fracked_Pas_middle_class.html">charged</a> led to cuts to public services across the state.<br /><br />
“It’s pretty simple,” state Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Philadelphia Democrat, <a href="http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/13/state-cuts-to-education-spur-philadelphia-school-budget-crisis/">told <span class="caps">MSNBC</span></a> recently. “Governor Corbett was elected, and he immediately began cutting education funding. At the same time, he gave tax giveaways to the largest corporations in the commonwealth.”<br /><br />
Both in Pennsylvania and across the country, the politics surrounding shale gas and fracking are far more divided and becoming even more so by the day.<br /><br />
Just one day after Mr. Corbett’s Philadelphia speech, Pennsylvania’s Democratic party <a href="http://www.politicspa.com/democratic-state-committee-roundup/48796/">added a fracking moratorium</a> to their state platform. In New York state lawmakers have grown <a href="http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/187173/tkaczyk-no-fracking-waste-in-new-york-thanks/">increasingly concerned</a> about the tens of thousands of tons of hazardous waste from fracking shipped in from states like Pennsylvania for disposal in their landfills. In Virginia, natural gas campaign finance is an issue in the state’s gubernatorial race. In California, the Los Angeles Times editorial board <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/26/opinion/la-ed-fracking-legislation-california-20130526">recently backed</a> a fracking moratorium in that state, saying it was “alarming how little state government has done to learn about or oversee the practice.”<br /><br />
Fewer and fewer parts of the country remain untouched by the boom and surrounding controversies. In seven southwestern states, including Texas and Colorado, drought conditions are found in the vast majority of counties where fracking is occurring, according to an Associated Press <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/fracking-presents-new-strains-on-water-supplies-in-some-drought-stricken-areas-of-the-us/2013/06/16/421299cc-d68a-11e2-ab72-3f0d51ec1628_story.html">investigation</a>. This has led to water-use disputes and driven some farmers to switch from growing crops to <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/fracking-water-battle-92862_Page2.html#ixzz2Wa4BJAnc.">selling their water rights</a> to energy companies. And in Illinois, Gov. Pat Quinn <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/illinois-gas-drilling-rules-fracking_n_3455668.html">signed a bill</a> that set environmental rules for fracking, under criticism from environmental groups who were pressing for a moratorium.<br /><br />
Oil and gas companies are increasingly acknowledging the conflicts their industry has caused. Earlier this month, Chevron Corp. Chief Executive Officer John Watson <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-11/chevron-ceo-says-industry-must-deal-with-fracking-concern.html">told a conference</a> in <span class="caps">D.C.</span> that energy companies must confront “legitimate concerns” that gas development associated with fracking is hazardous by following tougher voluntary standards.<br /><br />
Even in places where drilling is put on hold, and emphasis is on caution and advance study, the impact of the shale boom is already being felt. In New York, where a moratorium on shale gas extraction has been maintained since 2010, lawmakers are eyeing the waste generated by fracking in the region. A <a href="http://www.nysenate.gov/press-release/tkaczyk-proposes-ban-hazardous-fracking-waste-being-shipped-new-york-state">recently-introduced bill</a> would stop out-of-state fracking waste disposal in New York. New Jersey’s legislature passed a similar bill last year, but Governor Chris Christie <a href="http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local//region/55127-environmentalists-encourage-nj-lawmakers-to-try-again-on-banning-frack-waste">vetoed</a> it in November.<br /><br />
Virginia is yet another place where the impacts of the unconventional drilling boom are reverberating. A Pennsylvania driller involved in a dispute over coal bed methane gas in the state has been bankrolling Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, the Washington Post <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-06-10/local/39863644_1_attorney-general-ken-cuccinelli-virginia-gas-property-owners">reported</a> earlier this month. Pennsylvania-based <span class="caps">CNX</span> Gas, a subsidiary of Consol Energy, donated $100,000 to the campaign of Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Mr. Cuccinelli has recently taken heat for not revealing that a lawyer from his office was actively assisting <span class="caps">CNX</span> and another company, <span class="caps">EQT</span>, in the case.<br /><br />
In California, where drilling supporters say the Monterey Shale's oil could be <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323353204578128733463180210.html">worth $1 trillion</a>, residents are concerned about the unknown hazards of fracking and wastewater disposal on active fault lines. Historically quake-free areas like Ohio and Oklahoma have <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/03/does-fracking-cause-earthquakes-wastewater-dewatering">experienced earthquakes</a> as strong as 5.7 on the Richter scale and federal researchers have tied these quakes to the practice of injecting fracking waste underground for disposal.</p>
<p>Fracking in California is neither regulated nor tracked by the state’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources. A major <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/california-fracking_n_2327165.html">battle</a> is <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/17/who-fracking-california">brewing</a> over how California would regulate a potential shale boom (or the financial bust that could follow it), with<a href="http://sd27.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-04-09-compromise-bill-regulate-fracking-advances-legislature"> talk</a> of ballot-based voter initiatives if the state legislature fails to act soon.<br /><br />
Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, where the Marcellus fracking bonanza is well underway, there are signs of a growing resistance to the industry. On Saturday, June 15, the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee <a href="http://www.politicspa.com/democratic-state-committee-roundup/48796/">voted to add</a> a call for a <a href="http://http://www.gastruth.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Moratorium_Fracking_Resolution_annotated.pdf">fracking moratorium</a> “until such time as the practice can be done safely” to their party platform. The vote passed 59 percent to 41 percent, roughly the same margin by which a recent <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/survey-pa-residents-give-cautious-support-for-gas-drilling-687670/">Muhlenberg College poll</a> found Pennsylvania voters support a statewide moratorium. At a prior state Democratic party meeting, a similar proposal did not even make it to the floor for a vote.<br /><br />
Concern about the shale drilling industry is starting to catch up with its foremost promoters in the state that has been ground zero for the Marcellus gas rush.<br /><br />
Governor Corbett’s strategy of promoting drilling to foster job growth has not returned impressive results across much of the state. Though new jobs have certainly been created in the state's drilling industry, Pennsylvania’s overall <a href="http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm">unemployment rate</a> in April was at 7.6% – meaning it was slightly higher than the <a href="http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000">national unemployment rate</a> of 7.5% – and as of March, the state <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2013-05-02/news/38960355_1_pamatters-com-corbett-drug-test">ranked</a> 49th out of 50 states in job creation, according to data from Arizona State University.</p>
<p>Jobs in the energy industry – including coal mining and conventional oil and gas drilling – account for only <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2013-05-06/business/39044266_1_energy-development-shale-gas-marcellus-shale-coalition">one half of one percent</a> of Pennsylvania’s economy.<br /><br />
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Corbett has performed abysmally in the polls this year. One polling company official <a href="http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/03/corbett-a-massive-underdog-for-a-second-term.html">labeled</a> Mr. Corbett “the most endangered Governor in the country up for reelection next year.” A poll by Franklin and Marshall College <a href="http://http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/morning_roundup/2013/05/poll-only-25-think-corbett-deserves.html">released last month</a> found that only 25 percent of Pennsylvania voters believed Mr. Corbett deserved re-election – the <a href="http://http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/02/corbett_poll_numbers_worst_in.html">lowest</a> for a sitting governor in the 18-year history of the poll.</p>
<p>Only <a href="http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/846820_Pollster-says-Gov--Corbett-out-of-step-with-voters.html">13 percent</a> gave him a grade of “B” or higher for job creation.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:8px;">Image credit: <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;search_tracking_id=EO6Avp-ke9ntjSJ7Dggh0w&amp;version=llv1&amp;anyorall=all&amp;safesearch=1&amp;searchterm=harrisburg&amp;search_group=&amp;orient=&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchtermx=&amp;photographer_name=&amp;people_gender=&amp;people_age=&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;people_number=&amp;commercial_ok=&amp;color=&amp;show_color_wheel=1#id=122718553&amp;src=KsevlvfjzM806gmpzA2gXg-1-0">Harrisburg</a> via Shutterstock.</span></p>
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<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/745">california</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10467">Monterey Shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12945">uncoventional gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10555">Fracking Jobs</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6990">earthquakes</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2625">pennsylvania</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12946">impact fee</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12947">Sen. Vincent Hughes</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5930">fracking moratorium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6349">hydrofracking</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12948">Pat Quinn</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/chevron">chevron</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6552">Chris Christie</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12949">CNX Gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12950">Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12951">Pennsylvania Deomcratic State Committee</a></div></div></div>Fri, 21 Jun 2013 11:00:00 +0000Sharon Kelly7261 at http://www.desmogblog.comPennsylvania's Top Environmental Regulator Champions Drilling Industry at Shale Conferencehttp://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/26/pennsylvania-s-top-environmental-regulator-champions-drilling-industry-shale-conference
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/Krancer.jpg?itok=f6OhlG1I" width="150" height="110" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>When Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary <a href="http://www.dugeast.com/635">Michael Krancer stepped to the mic at a shale oil and gas conference</a> earlier this month, he offered one of his most candid descriptions to date of how he sees his mission as a regulator. His job, he said, is to protect the state not from the potential misdeeds of drillers but from those of the <span class="caps">EPA</span>.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span><span class="caps">EPA</span> has completely lost its concept of the rule of law,” Mr. Krancer charged, adding that he would remain watchful against any effort by the federal government to usurp state authority over hydraulic fracturing.</p>
<p>It was a small window into the mind of the top environmental regulator in a state now famous as ground zero of the current drilling boom, where the shale industry has enjoyed a virtually unprecedented bonanza.</p>
<p>Mr. Krancer described how foolhardy he thought it was to assume that the industry needed policing.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>We’ve been doing this safely in the United States for years and years and years,” he said with regards to hydraulic fracturing (fracking).</p>
<p>Along these lines, he dared his listeners to walk up to any American rigworker and to look that worker in the eye and tell say to his or her face that they shouldn’t be trusted to do their job safely.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Actually, I don’t recommend that you do take that challenge,” he added, to knowing chuckles from the audience of shale gas industry representatives.</p>
<!--break-->
<p>Mr. Krancer has come under heavy fire lately for the way his department has handled water testing when groundwater contamination from drilling and fracking was suspected.</p>
<p>During a question-and-answer session following his speech, Mr. Krancer was pressed repeatedly to explain why many test results were never released to homeowners.</p>
<p>Describing it as a “manufactured issue” he went on the offensive against a state representative who had called for a criminal investigation into the <span class="caps">DEP</span>’s conduct.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Frankly, that Representative doesn’t have the faintest idea what he’s talking about,” Mr. Krancer charged.</p>
<p>Mr. Krancer became increasingly combative as members of the press continued to question him about water testing results.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Do your homework, and then come ask me an intelligent question,” Mr. Krancer shot back when award-winning Pittsburgh Post Gazette reporter Don Hopey asked about way his department chooses what to test for when contamination from drilling or fracking is suspected. (To his credit, Mr. Hopey did in fact seem to have done his homework, having in hand a thick stack of hard-copy documents covered in notes – including what appeared to be the very documents Mr. Krancer alleged the journalist had ignored.)</p>
<p>Krancer’s responses became vaguely threatening as the questions continued.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>I don’t comment on requests to investigate – I could make a couple of requests to investigate myself but I probably shouldn’t or won’t do that,” Mr. Krancer said when a third reporter asked about the potential criminal investigations into the <span class="caps">DEP</span>’s handling of water test results.</p>
<p>Although his hostility to the press was palpable at times, he was far warmer when speaking to the energy industry.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>What I see is the making of an American energy super-power, right here in Pennsylvania,” he enthused, praising the industry for producing domestic energy that he said meant energy security for the United States and a major boon for the economy.</p>
<p>This closeness began long before this month’s conference. When Krancer joined Governor Tom Corbett’s administration, one of his first acts was to issue a policy requiring his <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/03/new_dep_policy_no_violations_a.html">personal approval for all Marcellus shale-related enforcement actions</a>. After the memo describing the policy was leaked, governance watchdogs cried foul over the potential for political interference in law enforcement decisions and Krancer backed down. But the message to field agents had been sent.</p>
<p>Indeed, enforcement has fallen by the wayside under Krancer's watch.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>More than 9 out of every 10 violations by Marcellus Shale gas drilling companies resulted in no fines from <span class="caps">DEP</span>,” <a href="http://www.cleanwateraction.org/files/publications/pa/Enforcement%20report%202011.pdf">a report </a>by the environmental group Clean Water Action concluded, based on a review of enforcement statistics from 2011.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>In fact, a larger percent of violations are going unpunished now than in any of the past 10 years,” another <a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/files/publications/FINAL-PA-enforcement-sm.pdf">report</a>, by Earthworks' Oil and Gas Accountability Project, found after reviewing enforcement actions by the <span class="caps">DEP</span> up to April 2012. That report also found that even though drilling had slowed slightly in the state as natural gas prices plunged, the number of environmental violations by drillers has remained high.</p>
<p>As he spoke to drillers at the conference, Mr. Krancer was enthused about what he termed a “juggernaut of jobs” that could come from drilling in Pennsylvania. But in his enthusiasm, he seemed prone to an exaggerated take on the industry’s potential.</p>
<p>In areas where the industry itself has scaled back on some of its overblown rhetoric, Mr. Krancer has gone in the opposite direction.</p>
<p>A few years ago, some in the oil and gas industry projected that one hundred years worth of natural gas could be produced from the Marcellus shale alone. But these early hopes have not been borne out. Last year, the <span class="caps">USGS</span> downgraded its estimates for the Marcellus region, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/us/new-data-not-so-sunny-on-us-natural-gas-supply.html?pagewanted=all">the <span class="caps">EIA</span> followed</a>, slashing its projections for the Marcellus by eighty percent in January.</p>
<p>These revisions cast claims of a century-long supply into grave doubt. Undeterred, Michael Krancer went even a step further at the <a href="http://www.dugeast.com/635"><span class="caps">DUG</span> East conference</a>, telling those assembled that the region could supply “hundreds of years” of gas – far higher than the industry has ever claimed.</p>
<p>Krancer also predicted that drilling could create 20 million jobs – a stunning claim to make about an industry which the Bureau of Labor Statistics <a href="http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag211.htm">estimates</a> currently employs less than 200,000 workers.</p>
<p>In fact, Krancer’s 20-million-jobs estimate reflects 18.4 million more jobs than the (often-debunked) claim by America’s Natural Gas Alliance that shale drilling could create 1.6 million jobs nationwide – by 2035.</p>
<p>There was another, perhaps even more telling, statistic that came from Krancer’s speech at <span class="caps">DUG</span> East.</p>
<p>It was a full 8 minutes into his speech before Mr. Krancer first mentioned the environment. When he did so, it was to assure the assembled drillers that he was aware of their commitment to safety and their “environmental sensitivity.”</p>
<p>But many in the state are not convinced that the industry’s track record in the state justifies this degree of confidence.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>There are currently 12 environmental violations per day on average, at Marcellus Shale gas drilling well pads and associated infrastructure in Pennsylvania,” Iris Marie Bloom, director of the Pennsylvania-based environmental group Protecting Our Waters, <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2012/03/14/show-down-expected-at-the-srbc-corral/#more-7836">told <span class="caps">NPR</span></a> earlier this year.</p>
<p>As questions about Krancer’s handling of environmental issues kept mounting during the question-and-answer session at the conference, it became clear that the secretary was among friends that day.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Oh god, here we go,” Talisman Energy’s Dave Mitchell said quietly to a colleague when reporter Don Hopey, documents in hand, pushed Krancer for answers about the water contamination tests. “I’m gonna ask the next question.”</p>
<p>Mitchell took the mic and tossed Krancer a soft-ball question about gas prices, directing attention away from environmental problems and away from Krancer’s own record.</p>
<p>It was a gesture that spoke volumes.</p>
<p>As much as Secretary Krancer looks out for the shale drilling industry, it seems that, in some ways the industry looks out for him too.</p>
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<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11064">DUG East</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11178">Michael Krancer</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11065">Developing Unconventionals East</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6635">Water Contamination</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11179">Don Hopey</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9562">investigative reporting</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5762">talisman energy</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2625">pennsylvania</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10856">Marcellus Shale basin</a></div></div></div>Mon, 26 Nov 2012 14:59:21 +0000Sharon Kelly6685 at http://www.desmogblog.comFracking Your Future: Campus Drilling Extends Far Beyond Pennsylvaniahttp://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/22/fracking-your-future-campus-drilling-extends-far-beyond-pennsylvania
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/800px-ArlingtonHall.png?itok=vNgoVL0w" width="200" height="120" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>The oil and gas industry plans to perform <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/">hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)</a> on <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/17/fracking-your-future-shale-gas-industry-targets-college-campuses-schools">college campuses in Pennsylvania</a>, just as it currently does <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/17/fracking-your-future-shale-gas-industry-targets-college-campuses-schools">in close proximity to K-12 schools nationwide</a>. </p>
<p>But as <em><span class="caps">NPR</span></em> demonstrated in a recent <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/11/20/165564546/there-s-oil-on-them-there-campuses?ft=1&amp;f=1013">report</a>, that's just the tip of the iceberg.</p>
<p>“More than a dozen schools in states as varied as Texas, Montana, Ohio and West Virginia are already tapping natural resources on college campuses,” the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/11/20/165564546/there-s-oil-on-them-there-campuses?ft=1&amp;f=1013">report explains</a>. “The University of Southern Indiana recently started pumping oil.”</p>
<p>Like Pennsylvania - which has seen <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/17/fracking-your-future-shale-gas-industry-targets-college-campuses-schools">higher education budget cuts totaling over $460 million</a> since Republican Gov. Tom Corbett took office in 2010 - nearly all of these states have faced massive cuts in their most recent budgets. </p>
<p>Texas, led by Republican Gov. Rick Perry, <a href="http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/01/19/2781778/texas-budget-plan-would-cut-17.html">saw a $1.7 billion funding cut</a> in its most recent budget cycle. Indiana, led by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, was hit with <a href="http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/news/local/78571622.html">$150 million in higher education cuts</a> in its most recent budget.</p>
<p>Montana, led by Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer, was <a href="http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/article_63ad422c-210f-11e0-8f4e-001cc4c03286.html">handed $14.6 million in higher education cuts</a> in the most recent budget. And West Virginia, led by Democratic Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, saw <a href="http://www.dailymail.com/News/statenews/201210210172">$34 million evaporate from its higher education war chest</a> in its most recent budget cycle.</p>
<!--break-->
<h3>
Fracking on Campus a New Fundraising Mechanism, But “You Can't Drink Money”</h3>
<p>Fracking on cash-strapped college campuses in these states has become a new fundraising mechanism and a way to pad endowments.</p>
<p>“…[W]e can put the revenue toward encouraging gifts to the endowment,” Kristin Sullivan, a spokeswoman at University of Texas-Arlington <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/11/20/165564546/there-s-oil-on-them-there-campuses?ft=1&amp;f=1013">told <em><span class="caps">NPR</span></em></a>. “This is a finite resource. You have to be very wise about how you allocate that revenue.” </p>
<p>The costs associated with fracking on university grounds, though, go far above and beyond revenue it brings into vastly under-funded schools. The <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/cornell-fracking-shale-gas-more-dangerous-than-coal-climate">climate</a> and <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/19/study-fracking-pa-poisoning-communities-as-floodgates-open-drilling-campuses-public-parks">ecological costs</a> are also a huge part of any honest equation. </p>
<p>Or put much more simply, “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgYv2r_Wgp8">you can't drink money</a>.”</p>
<p><strong>Photo Credit</strong>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ArlingtonHall.PNG">Wikimedia Commons</a> | <span class="caps">EMB</span>aero</p>
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<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11165">University of Texas-Arlington</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11166">Fracking as Higher Education Fundraising Mechanism</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11167">University of Southern Indiana</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2411">Montana</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10646">higher education</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10587">Higher Education Budget Cuts</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11168">Fracking on Campus</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11169">Fracking on University Campuses</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11170">Fracking on College Campuses</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2625">pennsylvania</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11171">Kristin Sullivan University of Texas-Arlington</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10683">NPR</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2413">Brian Schweitzer</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5668">Earl Ray Tomblin</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2439">indiana</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6303">Ohio</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/917">texas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/3035">west virginia</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2800">natural gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6344">unconventional gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8931">unconventional oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11172">Fracking Your Future</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11173">You Can&#039;t Drink Money</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6814">Rick Perry</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11174">Mitch Daniels</a></div></div></div>Fri, 23 Nov 2012 21:58:27 +0000Steve Horn6683 at http://www.desmogblog.comFracking in PA Poisoning Communities as Floodgates Open for Drilling on Campuses, Public Parkshttp://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/19/study-fracking-pa-poisoning-communities-as-floodgates-open-drilling-campuses-public-parks
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_113386042.jpg?itok=ocBBGY8W" width="200" height="297" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Pennsylvania recently passed Act 147 - also known as the Indigenous Mineral Resources Development Act - opening up the floodgates for <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/">hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)</a> on the<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/17/fracking-your-future-shale-gas-industry-targets-college-campuses-schools"> campuses of its public universities</a>. As noted in a <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/17/fracking-your-future-shale-gas-industry-targets-college-campuses-schools">recent post by DeSmog</a>, the shale gas industry hasn't limited Version 2.0 of “<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/17/fracking-your-future-shale-gas-industry-targets-college-campuses-schools">frackademics</a>” to <span class="caps">PA</span>'s campuses, but is also fracking close to hundreds of K-12 schools across the country, as well. </p>
<p>We <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/17/fracking-your-future-shale-gas-industry-targets-college-campuses-schools">noted</a> the devastating health consequences of fracking close to a middle school/high school in Le Roy, New York, where at least 18 cases of Tourette Syndrome-like outbreaks have been reported by its students. This has moved <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Brockovich_(film)">Erin Brockovich</a>'s law firm to investigate the case, <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-01-26/new-york-school-mystery-disease/52804710/1?csp=34news">telling <em><span class="caps">USA</span> Today</em></a>, “We don't have all the answers, but we are suspicious. The community asked us to help and this is what we do.”</p>
<p><em>Earthworks Oil and Gas Accountability</em>'s just-published report, “<a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/files/publications/Health-Report-Full-FINAL-sm.pdf">Gas Patch Roulette: How Shale Gas Development Risks Public Health in Pennsylvania,</a>”<em> </em>makes the case that the decision to allow fracking on <span class="caps">PA</span>'s campuses has opened up a Pandora's Box stuffed with a looming health quagmire of epic proportions.</p>
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<p>The health survey and environmental testing conducted by <em>Earthworks</em> took place between Aug. 2011 and July 2012 and the <a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/files/publications/Health-Report-Full-FINAL-sm.pdf">report opens by stating</a>, “Where oil and gas development goes, health problems often follow.” The <a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/files/publications/Health-Report-Summary-FINAL.pdf">summary report explains</a>, “Many residents have developed health symptoms that they did not have before—indicating the strong possibility that they are occurring because of gas development.”</p>
<p>Surveying 108 residents in 14 Pennsylvania counties, the <a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/files/publications/Health-Report-Summary-FINAL.pdf">report found</a> “that those living closer to gas facilities reported higher rates of symptoms of impaired health.”<br /><br /><em>Earthworks </em><a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/files/publications/Health-Report-Summary-FINAL.pdf">reports</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[W]hen facilities were 1500-4000 feet away, 27 percent of participants reported throat irritation; this increased to 63 percent at 501-1500 feet and to 74 percent at less than 500 feet. At the farther distance, 37 percent reported sinus problems; this increased to 53 percent at the middle distance and 70 percent at the shortest distance. For severe headaches, 30 percent reported them at the farther distance, but about 60 percent at the middle and short distances. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And how about the health impacts of fracking for young people, who will be attending the K-12 schools and universities set to be situated right next to where drilling is set to occur?</p>
<p>“Surveyed children averaged 19 health symptoms, including some that seem atypical in the young, such as severe headaches, joint pain, and forgetfulness,” <a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/files/publications/Health-Report-Summary-FINAL.pdf">wrote <em>Earthworks</em></a>. “Among all the survey respondents, it was children living within 1500 feet of facilities who had the highest occurrence of frequent nosebleeds (56%),” also <a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/files/publications/Health-Report-Full-FINAL-sm.pdf">noting severe throat irritation as a reported ailment by 69-percent</a> of people younger than the age of 16.</p>
<p>Schools and campuses, of course, require fresh running water to drink and use for other purposes such as showers for lockers rooms, as well as water for students to wash their hands with in the bathroom. Fresh air to breath in, as opposed to the alternative, is also always a plus.</p>
<p>That being the case, the water and air tests conducted by <em>Earthworks</em> demonstrate that students, teachers, professors, faculty and staff should be on high alert, to say the least.</p>
<p>“More than half of the water well samples had elevated levels of methane and some had iron, manganese, arsenic, and lead at levels higher than the Maximum Contaminant Levels (<span class="caps">MCL</span>s) set by the <span class="caps">PA</span> Department of Environmental Protection (<span class="caps">DEP</span>),” <a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/files/publications/Health-Report-Summary-FINAL.pdf">the report stated</a>. “All of the air samples were taken in rural and residential areas; in several, higher levels of the <span class="caps">BTEX</span> chemicals (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, which are known carcinogens) were detected, as compared to samples taken by the <span class="caps">DEP</span> in 2010.” </p>
<h3>
Pennsylvania For Sale, Open for Bidding To the Oil and Gas Industry</h3>
<p>It's a dim outlook in <span class="caps">PA</span> to put it mildly, with a recent cherry on the top: Anadarko Petroluem Corporation <a href="http://www.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/584709/Talks-continue-on-proposed-gas-drilling-in-Rock-Run.html?nav=5011#.UIFNNt66yws.email">is in the midst of “talks”</a> with <span class="caps">PA</span>'s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources about fracking in the Rock Run area, site of a state-owned park. Republican Governor <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/state/pa-parks-director-says-he-was-forced-out-by-corbett-administration-656785/">Tom Corbett recently fired the Director of its state parks system</a>, John Norbeck, who was diametrically opposed to fracking in <span class="caps">PA</span>'s parks. </p>
<p>“Pennsylvania…[is] forging ahead with oil and gas development without considering the public interest,” said Nadia Steinzor, Marcellus Shale Organizer for <em>Earthworks</em>, in a <a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/media/detail/new_research_links_health_problems_with_oil_and_natural_gas_development">press release</a>. “That needs to change. And they can start by refusing to permit new drilling until regulators can assure the public that they’ve taken all necessary to steps to prevent risks to their health.”</p>
<p>It's a nice thought in theory.</p>
<p>But the current reality in Pennsylvania under the Corbett Administration is far darker, with whatever's left of the state's public assets currently being auctioned off for fracking - in what author and activist Naomi Klein described as <a href="http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/10/19/fracking-in-pennsylvania-shock-doctrine-to-systematically-dismantle-higher-education/">“shock doctrine” fashion</a> - to the oil and gas industry's highest bidders. </p>
<p><b>Photo Credit</b>: <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-586510p1.html">Glynnis Jones</a> | <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=113386042&amp;src=csl_recent_image-3">Shutterstock</a></p>
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<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10636">Anadarko Petroluem Corporation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10637">Corbett Administration</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10638">Tom Corbett Shock Doctrine</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10639">Tom Corbett Fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10640">Tom Corbett Shale Gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10641">Tom Corbett Marcellus Shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10642">Gas Patch Roulette: How Shale Gas Development Risks Public Health in Pennsylvania</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6276">Naomi Klein</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10643">Corbett John Norbeck firing</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10607">Tourette Syndrome</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10644">Le Roy</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/911">new york</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10598">Le Roy New York</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10645">Le Roy NY</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10597">Erin Brockovich</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10646">higher education</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10647">k-12 education</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10648">John Norbeck</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10649">John Norbeck Corbett firing</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10650">PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10651">PA DNR</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2625">pennsylvania</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8919">Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10652">Pennsylvania DNR</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10653">Nadia Steinzor</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10654">Earthworks Oil and Gas Accountability</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10333">Earthworks</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10323">Pennsylvania DEP</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10322">PA Department of Environmental Protection</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6684">PA DEP</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6685">Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6344">unconventional gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8931">unconventional oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10232">Frackademia</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7286">Shock Doctrine</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10606">Indigenous Mineral Resources Development Act</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10655">Pennsylvania Act 147</a></div></div></div>Sun, 21 Oct 2012 13:00:00 +0000Steve Horn6596 at http://www.desmogblog.comFracking Your Future: Shale Gas Industry Targets College Campuses, K-12 Schoolshttp://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/17/fracking-your-future-shale-gas-industry-targets-college-campuses-schools
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_104729948.jpg?itok=moBGB5FB" width="200" height="150" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>In Pennsylvania - a state that sits in the heart of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Marcellus_Shale">Marcellus Shale basin</a> - the concept of “<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/09/19/frackademia-the-brewing-suny-buffalo-shale-resources-society-institute-storm">frackademia</a>” and “<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/12/keystone-xl-contractor-suny-buffalo-shale-institute-conduct-LA-County-fracking-study">frackademics</a>” has taken on an entirely new meaning.</p>
<p>On Sept. 27, the <span class="caps">PA</span> House of Representatives - in a 136-62 vote - <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2012-09-27/business/34103652_1_university-presidents-leases-state-universities">passed a bill</a> that allows <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/">hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”</a> to take place on the campuses of public universities. Its Senate copycat version passed in June in a 46-3 vote and Republican Gov. Tom Corbett <a href="http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billinfo/bill_history.cfm?syear=2011&amp;sind=0&amp;body=S&amp;type=B&amp;bn=367">signed it into law as Act 147 on Oct. 8</a>.</p>
<p>The bill is colloquially referred to as the <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2012-09-27/business/34103652_1_university-presidents-leases-state-universities">Indigenous Mineral Resources Development Act</a>. It was <a href="http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billinfo/billinfo.cfm?syear=2011&amp;sind=0&amp;body=S&amp;type=B&amp;bn=367">sponsored by Republican Sen. Don White</a>, one of the state's top recipients of oil and gas industry funding between 2000-April 2012, pulling in $94,150 during that time frame, according to a <a href="http://marcellusmoney.org/news/2012-07-12-new-report-natural-gas-industry-has-spent-more-23-million-influence-pa-elected-offic">recent report</a> published by <em>Common Cause <span class="caps">PA</span></em> and <em>Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania</em>. Corbett has <a href="http://marcellusmoney.org/candidate/corbett-tom">taken over $1.8 million from the oil and gas industry</a> since his time serving as the state's Attorney General in 2004. </p>
<p>The Corbett Administration has <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/breaking/corbett-swings-budget-ax-at-schools-colleges-211408/">made</a> higher education budget <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2012-02-15/news/31063503_1_president-ann-weaver-hart-higher-education-cuts">cuts</a> totaling over $460 million in the past two consecutive <span class="caps">PA</span> state budgets. The oil and gas industry has <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/harrisburg_politics/Corbett-says-gas-drilling----on-campus---could-save-colleges.html">offered fracking as a new fundraising stream</a> at universities starved for cash and looking to fill that massive cash void, as <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2012-09-27/business/34103652_1_university-presidents-leases-state-universities">explained by <em>The</em> <em>Philadelphia Inquirer</em></a>:</p>
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<blockquote>
<p>Half of the fees and royalties generated by leases of State System of Higher Education lands would be retained by the university where the resources are located. Thirty-five percent would be allocated to other state universities. The remaining 15 percent would be used for tuition assistance at all 14 schools.</p>
</blockquote>
<div>
Some professors aren't exactly thrilled with this notion. </div>
<div>
</div>
<p>“I've become extremely concerned, disturbed, and disgusted by the environmental consequences of fracking,” a professor at Lock Haven University <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/pennsylvania-fracking-law-opens-drilling-college-campuses">told <em>Mother Jones</em> in a recent article</a>. “They've had explosions, tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals spilled. And we're going to put this on campus?”</p>
<p><em>Mother Jones</em>' Sydney Brownstone also explained that Pennsylvania isn't the only state playing this game, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/pennsylvania-fracking-law-opens-drilling-college-campuses">writing</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A couple of colleges in West Virginia have leased their land to fracking companies, and Ohio has a similar law to Pennsylvania's. The University of Texas also makes money from natural gas well pads on its land, and even installed one 400 feet away from a daycare center at its Arlington campus.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet even these details are merely the tip of the iceberg, as fracking has occured close to K-12 schoolyards for years, with accompanying devastating health consequences.</p>
<h3>
From Campuses to Schoolyards in <span class="caps">TX</span>, <span class="caps">NY</span>, and <span class="caps">CO</span></h3>
<p>As with fracking directly on campus, the gas industry knows no geographical bounds when deciding to extract shale gas close to K-12 schools. Three states serve as case studies.</p>
<p><strong><em>New York</em></strong></p>
<p>Perhaps the most tragic state of affairs can be found in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Roy,_New_York">Le Roy, New York</a>, a city with roughly 7,600 citizens, at Le Roy Middle School and High School. <em><span class="caps">CNN</span> </em><a href="http://www.texassharon.com/2012/02/09/fracking-tourettes/">reported</a> on Le Roy in Feb. 2012:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are six natural gas wells on school grounds…Two of these wells spilled liquid onto the ground killing trees and vegetation right in the area of the wellheads…It's where every day, students play, do sports, practice their sports, right there on school grounds…This is definitely of concern to experts and parents I've been talking to.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>By March of that year, there were 18 documented cases of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001744/">Tourette Syndrome</a>, the plot <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/magazine/teenage-girls-twitching-le-roy.html?pagewanted=all">serving as the centerpiece for a cover story</a> in an issue of <em>The New York Times Magazine</em>.</p>
<p>Susan Dominus of <em>The Times</em> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/magazine/teenage-girls-twitching-le-roy.html?pagewanted=all">wrote</a>, “Teachers shut their classroom doors when they heard a din of outbursts, one cry triggering another, sending the increasingly familiar sounds ricocheting through the halls. Within a few months, as the camera crews continued to descend, the community barely seemed to recognize itself.”</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Brockovich">Erin Brockovich</a>, the attorney and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Brockovich_(film)">movie namesake</a> famous for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Brockovich#Pacific_Gas_and_Electric_litigation">winning a class action lawsuit against Pacific Gas and Electric for over $300 million in the 1990's</a> for contaminating groundwater with hexavalent chromium - a <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/hexchrom/">known carcinogen</a> according to the <em>Centers for Disease Control</em> - has <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/erin-brockovich-launches-investigation-tic-illness-affecting-ny/story?id=15456672#.UH9QnmkzseM">decided to take up this case</a>, as well. “We don't have all the answers, but we are suspicious,” <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-01-26/new-york-school-mystery-disease/52804710/1?csp=34news">she told <em><span class="caps">USA</span> Today</em></a>. “The community asked us to help and this is what we do.”</p>
<p><strong><em>Texas</em></strong></p>
<p>In Feb. 2011, the gas industry made an offer to put several wells <a href="http://www.wfaa.com/news/health/Proposal-Keeps-gas-wells-one-mile-from-schools-116447063.html">a few blocks away from a school</a> located in the Fort Worth Independent School District. The Fort Worth League of Neighborhoods proceeded with a <a href="http://www.wfaa.com/news/health/Proposal-Keeps-gas-wells-one-mile-from-schools-116447063.html">counter-offer of its own</a>, demanding wells stay at least a mile from K-12 schools.</p>
<p>Studies showed “high levels of carbon disulfide found near three <span class="caps">FWISD</span> schools,” explained a <a href="http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/02/17/harmful-chemical-found-at-drilling-sites-near-3-fwisd-schools/">report by <em><span class="caps">CBS</span> Dallas-Fort Worth</em> in Feb. 2011</a>. “Carbon disulfide is a colorless, volatile liquid linked to respiratory, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular problems.”</p>
<p>Further, Argyle, <span class="caps">TX</span> has approved 36 fracking wells, all of them <a href="http://www.texassharon.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/handout-school-map.jpg">sitting smack dab in the middle</a> of the tiny city's (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyle,_Texas">population 3,282</a>) elementary school, middle school and high school. Drilling rigs sit<a href="http://www.texassharon.com/2011/09/09/eagle-ford-shale-drilling-right-next-to-school/"> right across the street from Cotulla High School</a> in Cotulla, <span class="caps">TX</span> and three sit <a href="http://www.texassharon.com/2009/11/18/drill-rig-erected-behind-selwyn-school-in-denton/">behind the Selwyn School</a> in Denton, <span class="caps">TX</span>, <a href="http://www.texassharon.com/2009/12/04/did-devon-energy-give-selwyn-school-a-new-playground-ride/">right next to a playground</a>.</p>
<p><strong><em>Colorado</em></strong></p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/massey-wv-coal-battle-take-two-erie-co-citizens-fight-fracking">June article</a>, <em>DeSmogBlog</em> described Erie, <span class="caps">CO</span> as a key hub of the anti-fracking battle. EnCana Oil and Gas Corporation, <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/massey-wv-coal-battle-take-two-erie-co-citizens-fight-fracking">we explained</a>, plans to frack for shale gas near three local schools and a childcare center in Erie: Red Hawk Elementary, Erie Elementary, Erie Middle School and Exploring Minds Childcare Center.</p>
<p>Erie has welcomed EnCana with open arms.</p>
<p>“This encroachment of residential areas has really woken up a grassroots revolt of regular Coloradans who are standing up and saying don't come in my backyard,” Sam Schabacker, Mountain West Region Director for <em>Food and Water Watch</em> <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/massey-wv-coal-battle-take-two-erie-co-citizens-fight-fracking">told us in an interview back in June</a>. “And that's really what's going on in Erie. This is Exhibit A of how the gas industry has cavelierly expanded into residential areas against the wishes of local governments and regular Coloradans.”</p>
<p>Erie serves as a case study of an epidemic in Colorado. One <a href="http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/schooldrill/">study conducted by the <em>Western Resources Advocates</em></a> found almost 200 wells within 2,000 feet of a public school.</p>
<p>By contrast, <a href="http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/schooldrill/">explained the <em>Advocates</em></a>, “it is illegal in Colorado to idle a vehicle for more than 5 minutes within 1,000 feet of a school – but you can drill for oil and gas, spewing potentially toxic chemicals into the air, as long as you aren't closer than 350 feet.”</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.ucdenver.edu/about/newsroom/newsreleases/Pages/health-impacts-of-fracking-emissions.aspx">University of Colorado School of Public Health study</a> published in March demonstrated the grave risks associated with spending most of one's time near fracking operations, as <a href="http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/schooldrill/">explained by the <em>Advocates</em></a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>People living within a half-mile of oil and gas fracking operations were exposed to air pollutants at a level that is five times higher than the federal hazard standard. Researchers found a number of potentially toxic chemicals in the air near the wells, including benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene and xylene. The chemicals could lead to neurological or respiratory effects that include eye irritation, headaches, sore throat and difficulty breathing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These realities, at least thus far, haven't slowed the industry's gas rush nor have they served as a red flag for the Colorado government enabling these activities.</p>
<h3>
Fracking With “Reckless” Abandon, No Known Boundaries</h3>
<p>In an Oct. 15 press release, John Armstrong, Statewide Grassroots Coordinator at <em>Frack Action</em>, <a href="http://ecowatch.org/2012/fracking-is-reckless/">stated</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Fracking proponents continue their reckless and irresponsible push to frack even in the face of an overwhelming body of science showing that fracking poses serious risks to health and the environment and consensus among experts and government agencies that we need more scientific study on fracking. Our water, air and health are priceless.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given the state of play across the country for the gas industry, it's hard to disagree.</p>
<p><strong>Image Credit</strong>: <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-427597p1.html">Pincasso</a> | <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;version=llv1&amp;anyorall=all&amp;safesearch=1&amp;searchterm=shale+gas&amp;search_group=&amp;orient=&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchtermx=&amp;photographer_name=&amp;people_gender=&amp;people_age=&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;people_number=&amp;commercial_ok=&amp;color=&amp;show_color_wheel=1#id=104729948&amp;src=cc6aa756dfd41385da97df3855b9de4c-1-1">ShutterStock</a></p>
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<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10581">Argyle</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9646">Common Cause PA</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10582">Erie CO</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9953">Encana Oil and Gas Corporation</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10583">The New York Times Magazine</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10584">fracking health impacts</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10585">Lock Haven University</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2572">Mother Jones</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10586">CBS Dallas-Fort Worth</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10587">Higher Education Budget Cuts</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9731">University of Texas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10588">Tom Corbett Higher Education Budget Cuts</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10589">Selwyn School</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10590">Cotullo TX</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10591">Fort Worth League of Neighborhoods</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10592">Fort Worth Independent School District</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10593">Argyle TX</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10594">Denton TX</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10595">Le Roy Middle School and High School</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9319">Sam Schabacker</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6666">Food and Water Watch</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10596">Erie Colorado</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5739">Toxic Chemicals</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1370">cnn</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6159">benzene</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10597">Erin Brockovich</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10598">Le Roy New York</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10599">ethylbenzene</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10600">toluene</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10601">xylene</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10602">The Philadelphia Inquirer</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10603">Frack Action</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10604">John Armstrong</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9651">Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10605">PA Act 147</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2187">Colorado</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10606">Indigenous Mineral Resources Development Act</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7927">Niobrara Shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6162">Barnett Shale</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10607">Tourette Syndrome</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2800">natural gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6344">unconventional gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8931">unconventional oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9648">Sen. Don White</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10608">PA House of Representatives</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10609">PA Senate</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10232">Frackademia</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9730">Frackademics</a></div></div></div>Thu, 18 Oct 2012 20:20:04 +0000Steve Horn6588 at http://www.desmogblog.comClimate SOS Ends with Shale Gas Outrage, Autumn Begins with Global Frackdownhttp://www.desmogblog.com/2012/09/23/climate-sos-ends-shale-gas-outrage-autumn-begins-global-frackdown
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/Screen%20shot%202012-09-23%20at%2011.24.58%20PM.png?itok=WvfPJQDr" width="200" height="116" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Global grassroots activism is heating up alongside a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/23-0">scarily ever-warming climate</a>.</p>
<p>Since the beginning of 2012, we've seen the Arab Spring, the Wisconsin Uprising, the Tar Sands Action, and the ongoing <a href="http://tarsandsblockade.org/">Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span> Blockade</a>. In the climate justice movement, some have referred to the recently passed summer as the <a href="http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2012/07/30/climate-sos-its-our-time-to-act/">Climate Summer of Solidarity</a> (<span class="caps">SOS</span>).</p>
<p>The <span class="caps">SOS</span> closed with an action organized by <em>Protecting Our Waters</em> called <a href="http://shalegasoutrage.org/">Shale Gas Outrage</a>, which took place in the heart of the global fracking boom, Philadelphia, <span class="caps">PA</span>, home of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Marcellus_Shale">Marcellus Shale basin</a>. Outrage was warranted, given that this year's <a href="http://shalegasinsight.com/">Shale Gas Insight</a> unfolded in the City of Brotherly Love. Insight was <a href="http://shalegasinsight.com/sponsorship/">sponsored</a> by Chesapeake Energy, Chevron, Range Resources, <span class="caps">EOG</span> Resources, Aqua America (who <a href="http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/reports/fracking-the-new-global-water-crisis/">stands to profit off of water as a scarce resource</a> via fracking), and many others.</p>
<p><a href="http://shalegasoutrage.org/">Speakers at the pre-march rally</a> included the likes of “Gasland” Producer and Director Josh Fox, author and ecologist Sandra Steingraber, environmental journalist and activist Bill McKibben and <em>Food and Water Watch</em> Executive Director Wenonah Hauter; former Pittsburgh City Council member and <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/14/pittsburgh_ban_on_natural_gas_fracking">writer of the ordinance</a> that banned fracking in the city, Doug Shields, as well as members of the Pennsylvania community whose livelihoods have been deeply affected at the hands of the shale gas fracking industry. </p>
<p>Upon the rally's completion, activists zig-zagged up and down Philly's streets, <a href="http://shalegasoutrage.org/march-route/">making stops</a> at the Obama for President campaign headquarters and Governor Tom Corbett's campaign headquaters. </p>
<p><!--break-->“Since coming into office, President Obama has permitted every drop of water used to frack in northeast and central Pennsylvania with his vote on the Susquehanna River Basin Commission,” the Shale Gas Outrage <a href="http://shalegasoutrage.org/march-route/">webpage explains</a>. “The Global Shale Gas Initiative was established in his State Department and he has traveled to countries like India, Poland, and China to sign agreements that the <span class="caps">US</span> will assist them in drilling for shale gas.”</p>
<p>Of Corbett, Outrage <a href="http://shalegasoutrage.org/march-route/">explained the reasons behind its march pit stop</a> to his office this way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Corbett maintains that Pennsylvania should not tax the natural gas industry. In February 2011, Corbett repealed a four month old policy regulating natural gas drilling in park land, deeming it “unnecessary and redundant”. In February 2012, Corbett signed Act 13, overriding all local zoning laws for the gas industry, and putting a gag order on doctors.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Photos from the march are <a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.359717414106073.80746.150660375011779&amp;type=3&amp;l=4476192b0b">now up on the <em>Protecting Our Waters</em> Facebook page</a>.<br /><img alt="" src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/426182_10151097931313031_1841648330_n.jpg" style="width: 550px; height: 358px;" /><br /><em>Capetown, South Africa </em></p>
<h3>
Global Frackdown</h3>
<p>The first day of fall began where the <span class="caps">SOS</span> left off: with an action called the <a href="http://www.globalfrackdown.org/">Global Frackdown</a>, led in the forefront by <em>Food and Water Watch</em>.</p>
<p>Actions unfolded on five continents and as <a href="http://ecowatch.org/2012/thousands-rally-around-the-world-to-ban-fracking/"><em>EcoWatch</em> wrote</a>, “united activists on five continents at more than 150 events calling for a ban on fracking in their communities and to advocate for the development of clean, sustainable energy solutions.”</p>
<p><em>EcoWatch</em> <a href="http://ecowatch.org/2012/thousands-rally-around-the-world-to-ban-fracking/">went on to depict</a> the truly worldwide nature of the protests:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Major actions overseas included a rally on the steps of the European Parliament; demonstrations in front of Parliament buildings in South Africa, Bulgaria and the Czech republic; marches in Argentina; grassroots activities in Paris and the south of France, and screenings of the film Gasland in Spain.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Photos from rallies around the world can be seen on the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151093564123031.447588.50982313030&amp;type=3"><em>Food and Water Watch </em>Facebook page</a>.<br /><img alt="" src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/552139_359007734177041_1425696891_n.jpg" style="width: 550px; height: 364px;" /><br /><em>Philadelphia Shale Gas Outrage</em></p>
<h3>
A Frackivism Fall? It All Comes Back to Egypt</h3>
<p>Egypt was one of the first hubs of the Arab Spring. Now, shale gas industry wildcatters see the country as a new possible home for fracking, as covered in a Sept. 19 <a href="http://eipr.org/en/pressrelease/2012/09/19/1492">blog post</a> published by the <em>Egyptian Initiative on Personal Rights </em>(<span class="caps">EIPR</span>). Royal Dutch Shell and Apache have expressed interest in extracting Egypt's shale deposits.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Fracking threatens Egypt's drinking water, but Shell and Apache's drilling is mired in secrecy. Egyptians have a right to know how their resources are managed and how that impacts their environment and life,” <a href="http://eipr.org/en/pressrelease/2012/09/19/1492">said Reem Labib</a>, Environmental Justice Researcher at <span class="caps">EIPR</span>.</p>
<p>A year and a half after the Arab Spring, are we about to bear witness to a “Fracktivist Fall”? Well that's not likely.</p>
<p>Then again, neither was the Arab Spring.</p>
<p><strong>Photo Credit</strong>: <a href="http://shalegasoutrage.org/">Protecting Our Waters</a></p>
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class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6087">Governor Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/4754">President Obama</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1520">Barack Obama</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10301">Climate Summer of Solidarity</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10302">Summer of Solidarity</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7308">tar sands action</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10303">Arab Spring</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10304">Fracking in Egypt</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10305">Egypt Fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10306">Hydraulic Fracturing Egypt</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10307">Egypt Natural Gas</a></div></div></div>Mon, 24 Sep 2012 06:39:19 +0000Steve Horn6540 at http://www.desmogblog.comGas Industry Spent "Staggering" Amount Lobbying in Pennsylvania Last Yearhttp://www.desmogblog.com/gas-industry-spent-staggering-amount-lobbying-pennsylvania-last-year
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/PA%20Gas%20Lobbying.png?itok=gj1RH9-w" width="200" height="78" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>The <a href="http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/natural-gas-industry-spent-3-5m-on-lobbying-in-2010-1.1170483#axzz1RG38PtBg">gas industry spent $3.5 million last year</a> attempting to convince Pennsylvania lawmakers of the benefits of drilling the state’s deposits of unconventional gas. According to lobbying disclosure reports filed with the Department of State, the lobbying blitz to influence public policy was orchestrated by a collection of 22 companies, the <a href="http://marcelluscoalition.org/ ">Marcellus Shale Coalition</a> (<span class="caps">MSC</span>) and the <a href="http://www.pioga.org/">Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association</a> (<span class="caps">PIOGA</span>).</p>
<p><a href="http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/natural-gas-industry-spent-3-5m-on-lobbying-in-2010-1.1170483#axzz1RG38PtBg">Rep. Greg Vitali of Havertown</a> described the disclosed amounts as “staggering,” adding that, “it isn’t the type of spending you would find from fledgling companies.” <br /><br />The Times-Tribune <a href="http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/natural-gas-industry-spent-3-5m-on-lobbying-in-2010-1.1170483#axzz1RG38PtBg">reports</a> the figures as follows:<!--break--></p>
<div style="border: 1px solid LightGrey; margin: 10px; padding: 10px; width: 87%;">- Marcellus Shale Coalition: $1.1 million
<p>- Range Resources Appalachia: $392,000</p>
<p>- Chesapeake Energy: $382,000</p>
<p>- Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association: $247,000</p>
<p>- East Resources Management: $225,000</p>
<p>- Chief Oil and Gas: $186,000</p>
<p>- Alpha Natural Resources: $160,000</p>
<p>- Dominion Transmission: $146,000</p>
<p>- Exco Resources: $130,000</p>
<p>- <span class="caps">BG</span> North America: $124,000</p>
<p>- <span class="caps">EQT</span> Corp.: $105,000</p>
<p>- Talisman Energy: $85,000</p>
<p>- Equitable Gas Co.: $78,000</p>
<p>- Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania: $75,000</p>
<p>- Consol Energy: $75,000</p>
<p>- <span class="caps">CNX</span> Gas Corp.: $59,000</p>
<p>- Exxon Mobil: $55,000</p>
<p>- Cabot Oil and Gas: $50,000</p>
<p>- Pennsylvania General Energy: $48,000</p>
<p>- <span class="caps">XTO</span> Energy: $41,000</p>
<p>- National Fuel Gas: $36,000</p>
<p>- NiSource: $36,000</p>
</div>
<p>The dramatic rise of the gas industry in Pennsylvania along with its increasing lobbying presence has put tremendous pressure on state lawmakers, who are charged with both facilitating the drilling boom and protecting the public from the health and environmental threats associated with drilling. Pennsylvania is home to some of the worst unconventional gas production disasters in the country, many stemming from the industry’s use of the controversial hydraulic fracturing (fracking) method. </p>
<p>On paper, 2010 was full of promise for those who felt oversight of the gas industry was inadequate. Throughout the year, numerous bills were proposed to tighten accountability of gas drilling activities, ranging from water protection issues, pipeline safety standards and drilling bans in state forests. Both the House and State voiced the need for industry severance taxes and the Department of Environmental Protection introduced more thorough standards regarding drilling pollutants, well construction and frack fluid chemical disclosure.</p>
<p>But despite the flurry of legislative proposals, very little was actually accomplished. <a href="http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/natural-gas-industry-spent-3-5m-on-lobbying-in-2010-1.1170483#axzz1RG38PtBg ">Only two of the weaker proposed bills were passed into law</a>, one designed to increase access to well production data and the other regarding roll-back taxes for landowners. The proposed severance tax was overshadowed by a less strict impact fee, which was further deferred until this fall.</p>
<p>The increasing lobbying activity in Pennsylvania demonstrates the industry’s continued efforts to expand unconventional drilling, despite growing public concern over the inherent risks of dirty fracked gas. The oil and gas industry is focusing its efforts primarily on confusing the public and influencing politicians, not on making their operations safe for public health and the environment. <br /><br />“The legislative and regulatory issues facing our industry are countless,” says <a href="http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/natural-gas-industry-spent-3-5m-on-lobbying-in-2010-1.1170483#axzz1RG38PtBg ">Marcellus Shale Coalition Vice President David Callahan</a>. “While Marcellus development is still in its relative infancy, we recognize that common-sense policies – at all levels of government – are imperative.”</p>
<p>Coalition groups like the Marcellus Shale Coalition represent a variety of industry players, from continental drillers and national pipeline operators to multinationals such as ExxonMobil. </p>
<p>Doubling up on efforts to influence policy, coalition members also exercise their own lobbying muscle. Range Resources, Chesapeake Energy and ExxonMobil each fund a private lobbying arm and, in the case of the latter two, full-scale <a href="http://www.chk.com/Environment/Commitment/Pages/information.aspx ">public relations campaigns</a> designed to influence public opinion regarding <a href="http://www.aboutnaturalgas.com/ ">the benefits of unconventional gas</a>. </p>
<p>Gas industry lobbying in Pennsylvania has already created some troubling political alliances, <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/corbett-pa-energy-exec-authority-environment">like that between Gov. Tom Corbett and former energy executive C. Alan Walker</a>, blurring the lines between public and private interests. </p>
<p>At this stage there is little end to the spending spree in sight. Lobbying in the state is <a href="http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/natural-gas-industry-spent-3-5m-on-lobbying-in-2010-1.1170483#axzz1RG38PtBg">set to increase throughout 2011</a>, with the <span class="caps">MSC</span>, Range Resources and <span class="caps">PIOGA</span> already spending a combined $557,000 between January and March of this year. Shell Oil Co., which only registering to lobby in Pennsylvania on January 3rd, spent $92,000 in the same period. <br /><br /><em>Image Credit: <a href="http://www.marcellusmoney.org/" target="_blank">MarcellusMoney.org</a></em></p></div></div></div><!-- iCopyright Horizontal Tag -->
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<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/657">ExxonMobil</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2625">pennsylvania</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6141">Natural Gas Lobby</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6158">Range Resources</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6356">Chesapeake Energy</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6647">Marcellus Shale Coalition</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6684">PA DEP</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6685">Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6716">Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6793">C. Alan Walker</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6794">Greg Vitali</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6795">Times-Tribune</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6796">David Callahan</a></div></div></div>Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:07:48 +0000Carol Linnitt5510 at http://www.desmogblog.comPennsylvania Governor Ends Moratorium On Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling In Sensitive State Forestshttp://www.desmogblog.com/pennsylvania-governor-ends-moratorium-leasing-lands-marcellus-shale-gas-drilling
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/4142094198_e0c19a730f.jpg?itok=u0VOsYeS" width="200" height="135" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Pennsylvania’s new Republican Governor Tom Corbett fulfilled a <a href="http://www.worldoil.com/PA_governor_rescinds_ban_on_Marcellus_Shale_drilling_in_state_forests.html" target="_blank">campaign promise to rescind</a> his predecessor’s wise executive order and de-facto ban on the leasing of sensitive state forest land for Marcellus shale gas development. This short-sighted decision removes the requirement for environmental impact assessments prior to the granting of natural gas drilling permits, and strips other critical oversight of gas drilling on publicly-owned forest lands.<br /><br />Last October, former Democratic Governor Ed Rendell <a href="http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/news/newsreleases/2010/1010-sfdrillingmoratorium.htm" target="_blank">barred gas drilling in state forests</a> to protect “the most significant tracts of undisturbed forest remaining in the state.” The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (<span class="caps">DCNR</span>) determined that leasing new drilling sites would damage the ecological integrity of the state’s forest system. The Rendell moratorium provided significant checks on run-away shale gas development on public lands since it required the state parks and forests agency to thoroughly review drilling permit applications for some public lands “even where the state doesn’t own the below-ground natural gas rights.” <a href="http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/forest-drilling-issue-sensitive-for-corbett-1.1109522#axzz1FMiK749G" target="_blank">Specifically in instances</a> “where the state doesn’t own the mineral rights to 80 percent of state park land and 15 percent of state forest land.” <!--break--><br />In a <a href="http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/pennsylvania-governor-bans-fracking-in-state-forests/" target="_blank">prepared statement</a> released at the time of the ban, Rendell described the need for the moratorium stating:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Drilling companies’ rush to grab private lands across the state has left few areas untouched by this widespread industrial activity…”</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>We need to protect our unleased public lands from this rush because they are the most significant tracts of undisturbed forest remaining in the state.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><br />The <span class="caps">DCNR</span> was required <a href="http://www.worldoil.com/PA_governor_rescinds_ban_on_Marcellus_Shale_drilling_in_state_forests.html " target="_blank">to take into account</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>…threatened and endangered species habitat’ wildlife corridors; water resources; scenic viewsheds; public recreation areas; wetlands and floodplains; high-value trees and regeneration areas; avoiding steep slopes; pathways for invasive species; air quality; noise; and road placement and construction methods.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pennsylvanians have a right to feel concerned having seen the destructive environmental and health impacts from fracking for natural gas in the documentary <a href="http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/" target="_blank">Gasland</a>. The threats to drinking water and public health documented in the film have helped to encourage growing public awareness about the serious risks of hydraulic fracturing and other gas industry practices. The Environmental Protection Agency (<span class="caps">EPA</span>) has begun to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/08/us-usa-fracking-epa-idUSTRE7176IH20110208?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=GCA-GreenBusiness&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed:+reuters/USgreenbusinessNews+(News+/+US+/+Green+Business)" target="_blank">review the controversial hydraulic fracturing technique</a> widely used by natural gas drillers, with a preliminary assessment due out in late 2012 (with the final report expected in 2014). <br /><br />Public concern about fracking and other dangerous gas industry activity is surging, especially in the aftermath of the first two must-read installments in a series by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> investigating the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02gas.html " target="_blank">negative health and environmental impacts</a> from gas development across the country. <br /><br />Given this growing evidence of the risks posed by gas development for Pennsylvania’s health and environment, Corbett’s move is not only rushed, risky and wrongheaded, but it will bind his state’s future to yet another dirty fossil fuel.<br /><br />The new Governor believes the Rendell ban to be redundant and since the November 2010 elections, Republican leaders are emboldened to help their industry campaign contributors.</p>
<p>State Senator Mary Jo White (R-Venango), Chairwoman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee and <a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/database/uniquecandidate.phtml?uc=2505" target="_blank">career recipient of </a>nearly $42,000 in campaign contributions from electric utilities, almost $21,000 from mining interests, and $17,000 from oil and gas firms, has <a href="http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/forest-drilling-issue-sensitive-for-corbett-1.1109522#ixzz1FNbooOI1" target="_blank">cheered on</a> the new Governor’s efforts:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The policy was irresponsible and could potentially cost Pennsylvania taxpayers tens of millions of dollars from impairment of existing contracts.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not all State Senators are happy and particularly <a href="http://www.pasenate.com/?p=2054" target="_blank">Sen. Jim Ferlo</a> who was the first member of the Assembly to sponsor legislation for the moratorium on Marcellus shale gas drilling:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>I think that many of us were willing to give the new Governor the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, the honeymoon is already over because these repeals are a clear signal that the Governor is not ashamed to disregard common sense and the public interest to satisfy the oil and gas industry…” <br /><br />“This week there was another accident in Washington County and three workers were seriously injured. As Governor, his is job to protect Pennsylvania, our natural resources, and our public health…” <br /><br />“Instead, he is repealing necessary regulations and replacing them with a blank-check for the gas-drillers.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Additionally, John Quigley, a former <span class="caps">DCNR</span> secretary under Gov. Rendell <a href="http://www.marcellusprotest.org/corbett-changes-drilling-policy-pg-article" target="_blank">said</a> the repealed policy:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“…wasn’t redundant. In fact, quite the opposite situation exists. There are gaping holes in the state’s ability and practice of considering well drilling applications on public park and forest lands…” <br /><br />“The policy was just a common-sense approach to mitigating or avoiding any environmental, recreational and aesthetic impacts from the well drilling.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Governor Corbett’s decision to weaken gas regulations is a poor one that wagers the future of Pennsylvania’s families, communities and ecosystems on a filthy fossil fuel.</p></div></div></div><!-- iCopyright Horizontal Tag -->
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<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/epa">EPA</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1471">Environmental Protection Agency</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2625">pennsylvania</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5109">gasland</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6041">Ed Rendell</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6042">mary jo white</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6043">jim ferlo</a></div></div></div>Tue, 01 Mar 2011 23:50:22 +0000TJ Scolnick5177 at http://www.desmogblog.com